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#medea: he thinks he's funny

nikandrros · 1 year

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Okay, I'm gonna go a little

but hear me out:

If Melinoe is the ghost goddess/chthonic nymph and has the same hair color as Persephone, and following the Melinoe hymn it's said that "whom revered Persephone bore by the mouth of the Kokytos river", I'm betting money on the fact that she was born just after Zagreus, but since Mel was... you know, phantom-like:

Persephone could not just leave her to be or get back to the Underworld, so I'm theorizing she did the second best thing: leave Melinoe with someone else who was more apt to take care of her, someone like...

since Melinoe was called a, you know:

and she also calls the new big mommy Headmistress, so if I'm theorizing right said headmistress could either be Hecate, Circe, or Medea. Circe is a good option because of her island, which is somewhere the teaser seems to be happening at? Or a garden of some kind, or Olympus garden for all that I know because Chronos got himself free and brought war upon the Olympians, and on that note, I would like to point out that this place can very much be Poseidon's domain:

Some other things that I would LOVE to point out:

This guy is a son of Nyx. He's Thanatos and Hypnos' brother.

Nemesis is also a daughter of Nyx and it's said in canon. Also: LOOK AT THE FUCKING SWORD.

And Supegiant said in the Steam intro that:

"Infuse your legendary weapons of Night with ancient magick, so that none may stand in your way. Become stronger still with powerful Boons from more than a dozen Olympian gods, from Apollo to Zeus. There are nearly limitless ways to build your abilities. Meet a cast of dozens of fully-voiced, larger-than-life characters, including plenty of new faces and some old friends. Grow closer to them through a variety of new interactions, and experience countless unique story events based on how your journey unfolds."

Can we expect Hera, Hephaestus, and Hestia? Because we already got this gay- I mean, guy.

Halfway through this, I was like "ok but the headmistress dress like Charon so it would be pretty fucking funny if it was just Nyx with a hat" and this thought does have some credibility bc:

I MEAN??? LOL I MIGHT BE WRONG BUT I ALSO MIGHT BE RIGHT?? I think two chthonic gods in a trench coat are not too far-fetched for Hades' standards

(Will she be a boss? Will Chronos be a boss? WILL CHRONOS STOP TIME JUST AS HADES GOT INVISIBLE?)

AND YOU CAN PET THE FROG, THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT (its name might be Frino, because it was the name of the file when I got it from Steam).

And who do you think this red-caped dude is? My friend is betting her money on Odysseus and Jason.

And I would like to finish this madness with the fact that since Chronos is fucking shit up and Hades is trapped inside a BDSM dungeon like this

Zagreus is probably doing what he hates most in this whole wide world: the desk job LOL GET FUCKED ZAG

AND GO WATCH THE ANIMATED TRAILER

#hades #hades 2 #hades supergiant #hades 2 supergiant #hades game #supergiant games

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via-rant · 9 months

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Some opinions on PJO/HOO!

. First and foremost, The Lost Hero is a great fucking book! Y'all just don't like it cause Percy's not in it.

. Also Percy shouldn't have been one of the main characters, neither should Annabeth! The other two should've been Nico and Reyna! Who should've gone down to Tartarus? Leo and Piper! There could've been a lot more depth to Leo's powers and Leo's and Pipers relationship could've been a hell of a lot more expanded on! Platonically, of course.

. I hate people who say "Piper was so useless!" None of it could've happened without her bitch! Leo and Jason would've killed each other at Medeas place! This woman put Gaea back to fucking sleep I don't wanna hear it!

. Hazel isn't 'uwu' 'couldn't hurt a fly' SHE KILLED A GIANT BY HERSELF AT 13 AND CURSED OUT NUNS!! SHUT UP!!!

. SAME WITH FRANK!!! HE'S NOT ALL INNOCENT EITHER!! HE'S A DAM PRAETER FOR A FUCKING REASON!!! Also so many people are like "Leo insults him so much!!" Honey they insult each other! They argued!! Arguing goes BOTH WAYS!! Also character development happens people!! They got better!! Stop it!!

. I've only seen like 1 or 2 people say this but Lester is NOT a P3do! "He's 4000+ years old-" yeah in a 17 year olds body. He has actual hormones and Mortal shit now, having a small crush on Reyna does not make him a fucking p3do!! You wanna talk about a real p3do let's talk about Luke!! Or how Poseidon got Sally pregnant at 19???

. Adding to that yes Calyso is a p3do!! It's not the same as Lester!! Lester was thrown right into this teenage body, as a Mortal, he didn't have any experience with knowing how to do ANYTHING Mortal!! Calypso had thousands of years of maturing!! She's physically 15 but mentally she's like 10,000+!! Even if you skip that part, Caleo is still toxic! They fight all the fucking time!! If you think that's healthy, you've been brainwashed by the herteronormative agenda!!

. All the Gods are shit except Hestia, Apollo, Artemis and Hades!

. Leo is the main main character period!! Gaea went after him at 8 because he was destined to destroy her and she knew that!! Hera herself babysat him to train him for it!! If that's not main character energy, idk what is!!

. Jason isn't boring!! There are many times he made snarky comments or jokes that were actually funny!! And even if he didn't how would you feel if you forgot everything from the start?! I would be boring too!! (Also he's autistic.)

-----

I'll add more later if I think of any but here.

#pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heros of olympus #leo valdez #percy jackson #nico di angelo #reyna avila ramirez arellano #piper mclean #hazel levesque #frank zhang #lester papadopoulos #caleo #anti caleo

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thesovereignsring-if · 7 months

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I love drama so how would the RO’s react if during tea time with MC, the MC was poisoned. Who’s calm and rational and who’s like vengeful I guess?

Finny: He’d panic first, then do something stupid like taste the tea himself to make sure it was really poisoned. (And he’d survive somehow out of the power of himbo) V●ᴥ●V Afterwards he be super paranoid at anything resembling tea. He’s never let his lover get hurt like that again!

Thea: She’d get super paranoid, but very methodical at handling the situation. She’s quickly isolate the MC and take the tea with her and quickly study as much as she can to find the antidote. Her biggest concern would be saving the MC’s life and then finding the culprit. She’s doesn’t panic because she’s used to this kind of thing. She wouldn’t let anyone near the MC even Sieghardt or Alberich.

Linnet: Girl is on top of her game. Linnet would secure the area. Lock it down and get first responders and a doctor on the scene. Afterwards she’ll handle the crime scene herself and interview persons of interest until she can hunt down the person responsible. Girl would be like a bloodhound tbh.

Medea and Helios: If they are concerned, they wouldn’t show it. Once they’re sure the MC is taken care of by the professionals, they’d simply disappear for a while. Would that be shady and suspicious? Yeah. Would people think they poisoned the MC themselves? Uh huh. But then they’ll come back and say the job is done. And that’s that. ┐('～`;)┌ afterwards Medea would coddle the MC while Helios would try to make a funny joke to make the MC feel better.

Eirik: He’ll be the one yelling at the top of his lung. Screaming for help and to find the god damn monster who did this. Then he’d go out of his way to make sure that asshole pays dearly for messing with the MC. He would be cruel, slow and deliberate in getting bad much information as possible to find who or what was responsible.

#answered asks #tsr #eirik #ro(s)#medea #thea #finn #linnet #helios

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thewidowsghost · 6 months

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Seeing the Beauty (Piper McLean x Fem!Jackson!Reader) - Chapter 14

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Piper dreams she's back in Medea's department store. "Please let this be a dream," she mutters, "and not my eternal punishment."

"No, dear," says a woman's honey-sweet voice. "No punishment."

Piper turns, afraid she'd see Medea, but a different woman stands next to her, browsing through the fifty-percent-off rack.

The woman is gorgeous — shoulder-length hair, a graceful neck, perfect features, and an amazing figure tucked into jeans and a snowy white top.

Piper had seen her share of actresses — most of her dad's dates were knockout beautiful — but this lady is different. She's elegant without trying, fashionable without effort, stunning without makeup. After seeing Aeolus with his silly face-lifts and cosmetics, Piper thinks this woman looked even more astonishing. There's nothing artificial about her.

As Piper watches, the woman's appearance changes. Piper can't decide the color of her eyes, or the exact color of her hair. The woman becomes more and more beautiful, as if her image is aligning itself to Piper's thoughts — getting as close as possible to Piper's ideal of beauty.

"Aphrodite," Piper says. "Mom?"

The goddess smiles. "You're only dreaming, my sweet. If anyone wonders, I wasn't here. Okay?"

"I —" Piper wants to ask a thousand questions, but they all crowd together in her head.

Aphrodite holds up a turquoise dress. Piper thinks it looked awesome, but the goddess makes a face. "This isn't my color, is it? Pity, it's cute. Medea really does have some lovely things here."

"This — this building exploded," Piper stammers. "I saw it."

"Yes," Aphrodite agreed. "I suppose that's why everything's on sale. Just a memory, now." The goddess gestures around the department store. "You have other trials to face, my sweet. Medea will be back, along with many other enemies. The Doors of Death have opened."

"What do you mean?"

Aphrodite winks at her. "You're a smart one, Piper. You know."

A cold feeling settles over her. "The sleeping woman, the one Medea and Midas called their patron. She's managed to open a new entrance from the Underworld. She's letting the dead escape back into the world."

"Mmm. And not just any dead. The worst, the most powerful, the ones most likely to hate the gods."

"The monsters are coming back from Tartarus the same way," Piper guesses. "That's why they don't stay disintegrated."

"Yes, their patron, as you call her, has a special relationship with Tartarus, the spirit of the pit." Aphrodite holds up a gold sequined top. "No . . . this would make me look ridiculous."

Piper laughs uneasily. "You? You can't look anything but perfect."

"You're sweet," Aphrodite says. "But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit. To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself — avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily."

"My dad thought you were perfect." Piper's voice quavers. "He never got over you."

Aphrodite's gaze becomes distant. "Yes . . . Tristan. Oh, he was amazing. So gentle and kind, funny and handsome. Yet he had so much sadness inside."

"Could we please not talk about him in the past tense?"

"I'm sorry, dear. I didn't want to leave your father, of course. It's always so hard, but it was for the best. If he had realized who I actually was —"

"Wait — he didn't know you were a goddess?"

"Of course not." Aphrodite sounds offended. "I wouldn't do that to him. For most mortals, that's simply too hard to accept. It can ruin their lives! Ask your friend Jason. His poor mother was destroyed when she found out she'd fallen in love with Zeus. No, it was much better Tristan believed that I was a mortal woman who left him without explanation. Better a bittersweet memory than an immortal, unattainable goddess. Which brings me to an important matter . . ." She opens her hand and shows Piper a glowing glass vial of pink liquid. "This is one of Medea's kinder mixtures. It erases only recent memories. When you save your father, if you can save him, you should give him this."

Piper can't believe what she was hearing. "You want me to dope my dad? You want me to make him forget what he's been through?"

Aphrodite holds up the vial. The liquid casts a pink glow over her face. "Your father acts confident, Piper, but he walks a fine line between two worlds. He's worked his whole life to deny the old stories about gods and spirits, yet he fears those stories might be real. He fears that he's shut off an important part of himself, and someday it will destroy him. Now he's been captured by a giant. He's living a nightmare. Even if he survives . . . if he has to spend the rest of his life with those memories, knowing that gods and spirits walk the earth, it will shatter him. That's what our enemy hopes for. She will break him, and thus break your spirit."

Piper wants to shout that Aphrodite was wrong. Her dad is the strongest person she knew. Piper would never take his memories the way Hera had taken (Y/n)'s.

But somehow she can't stay angry with Aphrodite. She remembers what her dad had said months ago, at the beach at Big Sur: If I really believed in Ghost Country, or animal spirits, or Greek gods . . . I don't think I could sleep at night. I'd always be looking for somebody to blame.

Now Piper wants someone to blame, too.

"Who is she?" Piper demands. "The one controlling the giants?"

Aphrodite purses her lips. She moves to the next rack, which holds battered armor and ripped togas, but Aphrodite looks through them as if they were designer outfits.

"You have a strong will," she muses. "I'm never given much credit among the gods. My children are laughed at. They're dismissed as conceited and shallow."

"Some of them are."

Aphrodite laughs. "Granted. Perhaps I'm conceited and shallow, too, sometimes. A girl has to indulge. Oh, this is nice." She picks up a burned and stained bronze breastplate and holds it up for Piper to see. "No?"

"No," Piper said. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Patience, my sweet," the goddess says. "My point is that love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest, bravest acts are done for love."

Piper pulls out her dagger and studies its reflective blade. "Like Helen starting the Trojan War?"

"Ah, Katoptris." Aphrodite smiles. "I'm glad you found it. I get so much flack for that war, but honestly, Paris and Helen were a cute couple. And the heroes of that war are immortal now — at least in the memories of men. Love is powerful, Piper. It can bring even the gods to their knees. I told this to my son Aeneas when he escaped from Troy. He thought he had failed. He thought he was a loser! But he traveled to Italy —"

"And became the forebear of Rome."

"Exactly. You see, Piper, my children can be quite powerful. You can be quite powerful, because my lineage is unique. I am closer to the beginning of creation than any other Olympian."

Piper struggles to remember about Aphrodite's birth. "Didn't you . . . rise from the sea? Standing on a seashell?"

The goddess laughs. "That painter Botticelli had quite an imagination. I never stood on a seashell, thank you very much. But yes, I rose from the sea. The first beings to rise from Chaos were the Earth and Sky — Gaea and Ouranos. When their son, the Titan Kronos, killed Ouranos —"

"By chopping him to pieces with a scythe," Piper remembers.

Aphrodite wrinkles her nose. "Yes. The pieces of Ouranos fell into the sea. His immortal essence created seafoam. And from that foam —"

"You were born. I remember now. So you're —"

"The last child of Ouranos, who was greater than the gods or the Titans. So, in a strange way, I'm the eldest Olympian god. As I said, love is a powerful force. And you, my daughter, are much more than a pretty face. Which is why you already know who is waking the giants, and who has the power to open doors into the deepest parts of the earth." Aphrodite waits, as if she can sense Piper slowly putting together the pieces of a puzzle, which makes a dreadful picture.

"Gaea," Piper says. "The earth itself. That's our enemy."

She hopes Aphrodite would say no, but the goddess keeps her eyes on the rack of tattered armor. "She has slumbered for eons, but she is slowly waking. Even asleep, she is powerful, but once she wakes . . . we will be doomed. You must defeat the giants before that happens, and lull Gaea back into her slumber. Otherwise the rebellion has only begun. The dead will continue to rise. Monsters will regenerate with even greater speed. The giants will lay waste to the birthplace of the gods. And if they do that, all civilization will burn."

"But Gaea? Mother Earth?"

"Do not underestimate her," Aphrodite warns. "She is a cruel deity. She orchestrated Ouranos's death. She gave Kronos the sickle and urged him to kill his own father. While the Titans ruled the world, she slumbered in peace. But when the gods overthrew them, Gaea woke again in all her anger and gave birth to a new race — the giants — to destroy Olympus once and for all."

"And it's happening again," Piper says. "The rise of the giants."

Aphrodite nods. "Now you know. What will you do?"

"Me?" Piper clenches her fists. "What am I supposed to do? Put on a pretty dress and sweet-talk Gaea into going back to sleep?"

"I wish that would work," Aphrodite replies. "But no, you will have to find your own strengths, and fight for what you love. Like my favored ones, Helen and Paris. Like my son Aeneas."

"Helen and Paris died," Piper says.

"And Aeneas became a hero," the goddess counters. "The first great hero of Rome. The result will depend on you, Piper, but I will tell you this: The seven greatest demigods must be gathered to defeat the giants, and that effort will not succeed without you. When the two sides meet . . . you will be the mediator. You will determine whether there is friendship or bloodshed."

"What two sides?" Piper's vision begins to dim.

"You must wake soon, my child," says the goddess. "I do not always agree with Hera, but she's taken a bold risk, and I agree it must be done. Zeus has kept the two sides apart for too long. Only together will you have the power to save Olympus. Now, wake, and I hope you like the clothes I picked out."

"What clothes?" Piper demands, but the dream faded to black.

. . .

Piper wakes a table at a sidewalk café.

For a second, she thinks she's still dreaming. It's a sunny morning and the air is brisk but not unpleasant for sitting outside. At the other tables, a mix of bicyclists, business people, and college kids sit chatting and drinking coffee.

She can smell eucalyptus trees. Lots of foot traffic passes in front of quaint little shops. The street is lined with bottle-brush trees and blooming azaleas as though winter was a foreign concept.

In other words: they're in California.

Her friends sit in chairs around her — all of them with their hands calmly folded across their chests, dozing pleasantly. And they all have new clothes on. Piper looks down at her own outfit and gasps. "Mother!"

She yells louder than she meant. Jason flinches, bumping the table with his knees, and then all of them are awake.

"What?" Hedge demands. "Fight who? Where?"

"Falling!" Leo grabs the table. "No — not falling. Where are we?"

(Y/n) blinks, trying to get her bearings. She focuses on Piper and makes a little choking sound. "What are you wearing?"

Piper probably blushed. She's wearing the turquoise dress she'd seen in her dream, with black leggings and black leather boots. She had on her favorite silver charm bracelet, even though she'd left that back home in L.A., and her old snowboarding jacket from her dad, which amazingly goes with the outfit pretty well. She pulls out Katoptris, and judging from the reflection in the blade, she'd gotten her hair done, too.

"It's nothing," she says. "It's my —" She remembers Aphrodite's warning not to mention that they'd talked. "It's nothing."

Leo grins. "Aphrodite strikes again, huh? You're gonna be the best-dressed warrior in town, beauty queen."

"Hey, Leo." Jason nudges his arm. "You look at yourself recently?"

"What . . . oh."

All of them had been given a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat.

"God, Leo." Piper tries not to laugh. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."

"Hey, shut up!"

"I think he looks good," says Coach Hedge. "'Course, I look better."

The satyr is a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffs and then eats.

Jason is wearing a baby blue collared, short sleeved dress shirt, tucked into khaki slacks, a pair of black dress shoes, and a navy blue tie.

"Well," (Y/n) says, "at least your mom overlooked me."

Piper knows that isn't exactly true. Looking at her, Piper's heart does a little tap dance. (Y/n) is dressed simply in black skinny jeans, a clean sea-green t-shirt, a black leather jacket. She has new track shoes on, her hair is newly trimmed, and she is wearing her bead necklace – four beads for four completed summers at camp, and on the necklace, is two wedding rings and Piper wonders if they're hers, or her parents. (Y/n)'s eyes are the same color as the sea in the distance. Aphrodite's message is clear: This one needs no improvement.

And Piper agrees.

"Anyway," she says uncomfortably, "how did we get here?"

"Oh, that would be Mellie," Hedge says, chewing happily on his carnation. "Those winds shot us halfway across the country, I'd guess. We would've been smashed flat on impact, but Mellie's last gift — a nice soft breeze — cushioned our fall."

"And she got fired for us," Leo says. "Man, we suck."

"Ah, she'll be fine," Hedge replies. "Besides, she couldn't help herself. I've got that effect on nymphs. I'll send her a message when we're through with this quest and help her figure something out. That is one aura I could settle down with and raise a herd of baby goats."

"I'm going to be sick," Piper fake gags. "Anyone else want coffee?"

"Coffee!" Hedge's grin was stained blue from the flower. "I love coffee!"

"Urn," Jason said, "but — money? Our packs?"

Piper looks down. Their packs are at their feet, and everything seems to still be there. She reaches into her coat pocket and feels two things she hadn't expected. One is a wad of cash. The other is a glass vial — the amnesia potion. She leaves the vial in her pocket and brings out the money.

Leo whistles. "Allowance? Piper, your mom rocks!"

"Waitress!" Hedge calls. "Six double espressos, and whatever these guys want. Put it on the girl's tab."

It doesn't take them long to figure out where they are. The menus say "Café Verve, Walnut Creek, CA." And according to the waitress, it is 9 a.m. on December 21, the winter solstice, which gives them three hours until Enceladus's deadline.

They don't have to wonder where Mount Diablo is, either. They can see it on the horizon, right at the end of the street. After the Rockies, Mount Diablo doesn't look very large, nor is it covered in snow. It seems downright peaceful, its golden creases marbled with gray-green trees. But size is deceptive with mountains, Piper knows. It's probably much bigger up close. And appearances are deceptive too. Here they are — back in California — supposedly her home — with sunny skies, mild weather, laid-back people, and a plate of chocolate chip scones with coffee. And only a few miles away, somewhere on that peaceful mountain, a super powerful, super-evil giant is about to have her father for lunch.

Leo pulls something out of his pocket — the old crayon drawing Aeolus had given him. Aphrodite must've thought it was important if she'd magically transferred it to his new outfit.

"What is that?" Piper asks.

Leo folds it up gingerly again and puts it away. "Nothing. You don't want to see my kindergarten artwork."

"It's more than that," Jason guesses. "Aeolus said it was the key to our success."

Leo shakes his head. "Not today. He was talking about . . . later."

"How can you be sure?" Piper asks.

"Trust me," Leo says. "Now — what's our game plan?"

Coach Hedge belches. He'd already had three espressos and a plate of doughnuts, along with two napkins and another flower from the vase on the table. He would've eaten the silverware, except Piper had slapped his hand.

"Climb the mountain," Hedge says. "Kill everything except Piper's dad. Leave."

"Thank you, General Eisenhower," Jason grumbles.

"Hey, I'm just saying!"

"Guys," Piper says. "There's more you need to know."

It's tricky, because she can't mention her mom; but she tells them she'd figured some things out in her dreams. She tells them about their real enemy: Gaea.

"Gaea?" Leo shakes his head. "Isn't that Mother Nature? She's supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and deer and rabbits doing her laundry."

"Leo, that's Snow White," Piper looks amused.

"Okay, but —"

"Listen, cupcake." Coach Hedge dabs the espresso out of his goatee. "Piper's telling us some serious stuff, here. Gaea's no softie. I'm not even sure I could take her."

Leo whistles. "Really?"

Hedge nods. "This earth lady – she and her old man the sky were nasty customers."

"Ouranos," Piper says. She can't help looking up at the blue sky, wondering if it has eyes.

"Right," Hedge says. "So Ouranos, he's not the best dad. He throws their first kids, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus. That makes Gaea mad, but she bides her time. Then they have another set of kids — the twelve Titans — and Gaea is afraid they'll get thrown into prison too. So she goes up to her son Kronos —"

"The big bad dude," Leo said. "The one they defeated last summer."

(Y/n) lets out an annoyed grumble, and Piper wonders if she'd remembered anything else – Piper makes a mental note to ask her about it later. Well, Piper's brain betrays her, if we live long enough for me to ask.

"Right. And Gaea's the one who gives him the scythe, and tells him, 'Hey, why don't I call your dad down here? And while he's talking to me, distracted, you can cut him to pieces. Then you can take over the world. Wouldn't that be great?"'

Nobody says anything. Piper's chocolate chip scone doesn't look so appetizing anymore. Even though she'd heard the story before, she still can't quite get her mind around it. She tries to imagine a kid so messed up, he would kill his own dad just for power. Then she imagines a mom so messed up, she would convince her son to do it.

"Definitely not Snow White," she decides.

"Nah, Kronos was a bad guy," Hedge agrees. "But Gaea is literally the mother of all bad guys. She's so old and powerful, so huge, that it's hard for her to be fully conscious. Most of the time, she sleeps, and that's the way we like her — snoring.''

"But she talked to me," Leo says. "How can she be asleep?"

Gleeson brushes crumbs off his canary yellow lapel. He's on his sixth espresso now, and his pupils are as big as quarters. "Even in her sleep, part of her consciousness is active — dreaming, keeping watch, doing little things like causing volcanoes to explode and monsters to rise. Even now, she's not fully awake. Believe me, you don't want to see her fully awake."

"But she's getting more powerful," Piper adds. "She's causing the giants to rise. And if their king comes back—this guy Porphyrion —"

"He'll raise an army to destroy the gods," Jason puts in. "Starting with Hera. It'll be another war. And Gaea will wake up fully."

Gleeson nods. "Which is why it's a good idea for us to stay off the ground as much as possible."

Leo looks warily at Mount Diablo. "So . . . climbing a mountain. That would be bad."

Piper's heart sinks. First, she'd been asked to betray her friends. Now they are trying to help her rescue her dad even though they know they are walking into a trap. The idea of fighting a giant had been scary enough. But the idea that Gaea is behind it — a force more powerful than a god or Titan . . .

"Guys, I can't ask you to do this," Piper says. "This is too dangerous."

"You kidding?" Gleeson belches and shows them his blue carnation smile. "Who's ready to beat stuff up?"

. . .

Leo had hoped the taxi could get them all the way to the top.

No such luck. The cab makes lurching, grinding sounds as it climbs the mountain road, and halfway up they find the ranger's station closed, a chain blocking the way.

"Far as I can go," the cabbie says. "You sure about this? Gonna be a long walk back, and my car's acting funny. I can't wait for you."

"We're sure." Leo is the first one out. He has a bad feeling about what is wrong with the cab, and when he looks down he sees he was right. The wheels are sinking into the road like it is made of quicksand. Not fast — just enough to make the driver think he had a transmission problem or a bad axle — but Leo knows different.

The road is hard-packed dirt. No reason at all it should have been soft, but already Leo's shoes are starting to sink. Gaea is messing with them.

While his friends get out, Leo pays the cabbie. He's generous — heck, why not? It was Aphrodite's money. Plus, he has a feeling he might never be coming off this mountain.

"Keep the change," he says. "And get out of here. Quick."

The driver doesn't argue. Soon all they can see is his dust trail.

The view from the mountain is pretty amazing. The whole inland valley around Mount Diablo is a patchwork of towns — grids of tree-lined streets and nice middle-class suburbs, shops, and schools. All these normal people living normal lives—the kind Leo had never known.

"That's Concord," Jason says, pointing to the north. "Walnut Creek below us. To the south, Danville, past those hills. And that way . . ."

He points west, where a ridge of golden hills holds back a layer of fog, like the rim of a bowl. "That's the Berkeley Hills. The East Bay. Past that, San Francisco."

"Jason?" Piper looks at the son of Zeus. "You remember something? You've been here?"

"Yes . . . no." He gave her an anguished look. "It just seems important."

"That's Titan land." Coach Hedge nods towards the west. "Bad place, Jason. Trust me, this is as close to 'Frisco as we want to get."

But Jason looks towards the foggy basin with such longing that Leo feels uneasy. Why did Jason seem so connected with that place — a place Hedge said was evil, full of bad magic and old enemies? What if Jason came from here? Everybody kept hinting Jason is an enemy, that his arrival at Camp Half-Blood was a dangerous mistake.

No, Leo thinks. Ridiculous. Jason was their friend.

Leo tries to move his foot, but his heels are now completely embedded in the dirt. "Hey, guys," he says. "Let's keep moving."

The others notice the problem.

"Gaea is stronger here," Hedge grumbles. He pops his hooves free from his shoes, then hands the shoes to Leo. "Keep those for me, Valdez. They're nice."

Leo snorts. "Yes, Coach. Would you like them polished?"

"That's varsity thinking, Valdez." Hedge nods approvingly. "But first, we'd better hike up this mountain while we still can."

"How do we know where the giant is?" Piper asks.

(Y/n) points towards the peak. Drifting across the summit is a plume of smoke. From a distance, Leo had thought it was a cloud, but it wasn't. Something is burning.

"Smoke equals fire," Jason agrees. "We'd better hurry."

The Wilderness School had taken Leo on several forced marches. He thought he was in good shape. But climbing a mountain when the earth is trying to swallow his feet is like jogging on a flypaper treadmill.

In no time, Leo had rolled up the sleeves on his collarless shirt, even though the wind is cold and sharp. He wishes Aphrodite had given him walking shorts and some more comfortable shoes, but he is grateful for the Ray-Bans that keep the sun out of his eyes. He slips his hands into his tool belt and starts summoning supplies — gears, a tiny wrench, some strips of bronze. As he walks, he builds — not really thinking about it, just fiddling with pieces.

By the time they near the crest of the mountain, Leo is the most fashionably dressed sweaty, dirty hero ever. His hands are covered in machine grease.

The little object he'd made is like a windup toy — the kind that rattles and walks across a coffee table. He isn't sure what it could do, but he slips it into his tool belt.

He misses his army coat with all its pockets. Even more than that, he misses Festus. He could use a fire-breathing bronze dragon right now. But Leo knows Festus would not be coming back — at least, not in his old form.

Finally Jason crouches behind a wall of rock. He gestures for the others to do the same. Leo crawls up next to him. Piper has to pull Coach Hedge down.

"I don't want to get my outfit dirty!" Hedge complains.

"Shh!" Piper says.

Reluctantly, the satyr kneels.

Just over the ridge where they are hiding, in the shadow of the mountain's final crest, is a forested depression about the size of a football field, where the giant Enceladus had set up camp.

Trees had been cut down to make a towering purple bonfire. The outer rim of the clearing is littered with extra logs and construction equipment — an earthmover; a big crane thing with rotating blades at the end like an electric shaver — must be a tree harvester, Leo thinks — and a long metal column with an ax blade, like a sideways guillotine — a hydraulic ax. A lake sits about fifty feet to the right of the bonfire.

Why a giant needs construction equipment, Leo isn't sure. He doesn't see how the creature in front of him could even fit in the driver's seat. The giant Enceladus is so large, so horrible, Leo doesn't want to look at him.

But he forces himself to focus on the monster.

To start with, he is thirty feet tall — easily as tall as the treetops. Leo is sure the giant could've seen them behind their ridge, but he seems intent on the weird purple bonfire, circling it and chanting under his breath. From the waist up, the giant appears humanoid, his muscular chest clad in bronze armor, decorated with flame designs. His arms are completely ripped. Each of his biceps are bigger than Leo. His skin is bronze but sooty with ash. His face is crudely shaped, like a half-finished clay figure, but his eyes glow white, and his hair is matted in shaggy dreadlocks down to his shoulders, braided with bones.

From the waist down, he is even more terrifying. His legs are scaly green, with claws instead of feet — like the forelegs of a dragon. In his hand, Enceladus hold a spear the size of a flagpole. Every so often he dips its tip in the fire, turning the metal molten red.

"Okay," Coach Hedge whispers. "Here's the plan —"

Leo elbows him. "You're not charging him alone!"

"Aw, c'mon."

Piper chokes back a sob. "Look." Just visible on the other side of the bonfire is a man tied to a post. His head slumped like he was unconscious, so (Y/n) couldn't make out his face, but Piper doesn't seem to have any doubts. "Dad," she says.

Leo swallows. He wishes this was a Tristan McLean movie. Then Piper's dad would be faking unconsciousness. He'd untie his bonds and knock out the giant with some cleverly hidden anti-giant gas. Heroic music would start to play, and Tristan McLean would make his amazing escape, running away in slow motion while the mountainside exploded behind him.

But this wasn't a movie. Tristan McLean is half dead and about to be eaten. The only people who can stop it — four fashionably dressed teenaged demigods and a megalomaniac goat.

"There's four of us," Hedge whispers urgently. "And only one of him."

"Did you miss the fact that he's thirty feet tall?" Leo asks.

"Okay," Hedge asks. "So you, me, (Y/n), and Jason distract him. Piper sneaks around and frees her dad."

They all look at Jason.

"What?" Jason asks. "I'm not the leader."

"Yes," Piper replies. "you are."

They'd never really talked about it, but no one disagrees, not even Hedge, and not (Y/n), who could've pulled the 'I've been at camp longer' card or the 'I was offered immortality by the gods' card. Coming this far had been a team effort, but when it comes to a life-and-death decision, Leo knew Jason is the one to ask. Even if he has no memory, Jason has a kind of balance to him. He can just tell Jason been in battles before, and he knows how to keep his cool. Leo wasn't exactly the trusting type, but he trusts Jason with his life.

"I hate to say it," Jason sighs, "but Coach Hedge is right. A distraction is Piper's best chance."

Not a good chance, Leo thought. Not even a survivable chance. Just their best chance.

They can't sit there all day and talk about it, though. It has to be close to noon — the giant's deadline — and the ground is still trying to pull them down. Leo's knees had already sunk two inches into the dirt.

Leo looks at the construction equipment and gets a crazy idea. He brings out the little toy he'd made on the climb, and he realizes what it can do — if he's lucky, which he almost never is. "Let's boogie," he says. "Before I come to my senses."

. . .

Piper scrambles along the ridge, trying to keep her head down, while Leo, Jason, (Y/n), and Coach Hedge walk straight into the clearing.

(Y/n) and Jason summon their magic weapons – Jason's coming up as a lance. (Y/n) brandishes her sword over her head and yells, "Giant!" which sounds pretty good and a lot more confident than Leo could've managed. He is thinking more along the lines of "We are pathetic ants! Don't kill us!"

Enceladus stops chanting at the flames. He turns towards them and grins, revealing fangs like a saber-toothed tiger's.

"Well," the giant rumbles, "What a nice surprise."

(Y/n) doesn't like the sound of that; Leo's hand closes on his windup gadget. He steps sideways, edging his way towards the bulldozer.

Coach Hedge shouts. "Let the movie star go, you big ugly cupcake! Or I'm gonna plant my hoof right up you –"

"Coach," Jason deadpans. "Shut up."

Enceladus roars with laughter. "I've forgotten how funny satyrs are. When we rule the world, I think I'll keep your kind around. You can entertain me while I eat all the other mortals."

"Is that a compliment?" Hedge frowns at Leo. "I don't think that was a compliment."

Enceladus opens his mouth wide, and his teeth begin to glow.

"Scatter!" Leo yells.

Jason, (Y/n), and Hedge dive to the left as the giant blows fire — a furnace blast so hot even Festus would've been jealous. Leo dodges behind the bulldozer, winds up his homemade device, and drops it into the driver's seat. Then he runs to the right, heading for the tree harvester.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jason and (Y/n) rise in unison and charge the giant. Coach Hedge rips off his canary yellow jacket, which is now on fire, and bleats angrily. "I liked that outfit!" Then he raises his club and charges, too.

Before they can get very far, Enceladus slams his spear against the ground. The entire mountain shakes.

The shockwave sends Leo sprawling. He blinks, momentarily stunned. Through a haze of grassfire and bitter smoke, he sees (Y/n) and Jason staggering to their feet on the other side of the clearing. Coach Hedge was knocked out cold. He'd fallen forward and hit his head on a log. His furry hindquarters sticking straight up, with his canary yellow pants around his knees — a view Leo really doesn't need.

The giant bellows, "I see you, Piper McLean!" He turns and blows fire at a line of bushes to Leo's right. Piper runs into the clearing like a flushed quail, the underbrush burning behind her.

Enceladus laughs. "I'm happy you've arrived. And you brought me my prizes!"

Leo's gut twists. This is the moment Piper had warned them about. They'd played right into Enceladus's hands.

The giant must've read Leo's expression, because he laughs even louder. "That's right, son of Hephaestus. I didn't expect you all to stay alive this long, but it doesn't matter. By bringing you here, Piper McLean has sealed the deal. If she betrays you, I'm as good as my word. She can take her father and go. What do I care about a movie star?"

Leo can see Piper's dad more clearly now. He wears a ragged dress shirt and torn slacks. His bare feet are caked with mud. He isn't completely unconscious, because he lifts his head and groans — yep, Tristan McLean all right. Leo had seen that face in enough movies. But he has a nasty cut down the side of his face, and he looks thin and sickly — not heroic at all.

"Dad!" Piper yells.

Mr. McLean blinks, trying to focus. "Pipes . . .? Where . . ."

Piper dares her dagger and faces Enceladus. "Let him go!"

"Of course, dear," the giant rumbles. "Swear your loyalty to me, and we have no problem. Only these others must die."

Piper looks back and forth between Leo and her dad.

"He'll kill you," Leo warns. "Don't trust him!"

"Oh, come now," Enceladus bellows. "You know I was born to fight Athena herself? Mother Gaea made each of us giants with a specific purpose, designed to fight and destroy a particular god. I was Athena's nemesis, the anti-Athena, you might say. Compared to some of my brethren – I am small! But I am clever. And I keep my bargain with you, Piper McLean. It's part of my plan!"

(Y/n) is on her feet now, sword ready; but before she can act, Enceladus roars — a call so loud it echoes down the valley and is probably heard all the way to San Francisco.

At the edge of the woods, half a dozen ogre-like creatures rise up. Leo realizes with nauseating certainty that they hadn't simply been hiding there. They'd risen straight out of the earth.

The ogres shuffle forward. They are small compared to Enceladus, about seven feet tall. Each one of them has six arms — one pair in the regular spot, then an extra pair sprouting out the top of their shoulders, and another set shooting from the sides of their rib cages. They wear only ragged leather loincloths, and even across the clearing, Leo can smell them. Six guys who never bathe, with six armpits each. Leo decides if he survives this day, he'd have to take a three-hour shower just to forget the stench.

"What the hell are those?" (Y/n) asks.

Piper's blade reflects the purple light of the bonfire. "Gegenees."

"In English?" Leo questions.

"The Earthborn," Piper replies. "Six-armed giants who fought Jason — the first Jason."

"Very good, my dear!" Enceladus sounds delighted. "They used to live on a miserable place in Greece called Bear Mountain. Mount Diablo is much nicer! They are lesser children of Mother Earth, but they serve their purpose. They're good with construction equipment —"

"Vroom, vroom!" one of the Earthborn bellows, and the others take up the chant, each moving his six hands as though driving a car, as if it were some kind of weird religious ritual. "Vroom, vroom!"

"Yes, thank you, boys," Enceladus says. "They also have a score to settle with heroes. Especially anyone named Jason."

"Yay-son!" the Earthborn screams. They all pick up clumps of earth, which solidify in their hands, turning to nasty pointed stones. "Where Yay- son? Kill Yay-son!"

Enceladus smiles. "You see, Piper, you have a choice. Save your father, or ah, try to save your friends and face certain death."

Piper steps forward, her eyes blazing with such rage, even the Earthborn back away. She radiates power and beauty, but it has nothing to do with her clothes or makeup. "You will not take the people I love," she says. "None of them." Her words ripple across the clearing with such force, the Earthborn mutter, "Okay, okay, sorry," and begin to retreat.

"Stand your ground, fools!" Enceladus bellows. He snarls at Piper. "This is why we wanted you alive, my dear. You could have been so useful to us. But as you wish. Earthborn! I will show you Jason."

Leo's heart sinks, but the giant doesn't point to Jason. He points to the other side of the bonfire, where Tristan McLean hangs helpless and half-conscious.

"There is Jason," Enceladus says with pleasure. "Tear him apart!"

The biggest surprise: one look from Jason, and all four of them know the game plan. When had that happened, that they can read each other so well?

(Y/n) and Jason charge Enceladus, while Piper rushes towards her father, and Leo dashes for the tree harvester, which stood between Mr. McLean and the Earthborn.

(Y/n)'s instincts kick in, and her gut tells her she'd dueled opponents almost this big before. Size and strength equaled slowness, so (Y/n) just has to be quicker – pace herself, wear out her opponent, and avoid getting smashes or flame-broiled.

(Y/n) rolls away from the giant's first spear thrust and jabs Enceladus in the ankle. Jason's javelin manages to pierce the giant's hyde on the other ankle, and golden ichor – the blood of immortals – trickle down the giant's clawed feet.

Enceladus bellows in pain and blasts (Y/n) with fire. She scrambles away, rolling behind the giant, and strikes again behind his knee.

It goes on like that for seconds, minutes — it was hard to judge. (Y/n) hears combat across the clearing — construction equipment grinding, fire roaring, monsters shouting, and rocks smashing into metal. She hears Leo and Piper yelling defiantly, which meant they were still alive. (Y/n) tries not to think about it. She can't afford to get distracted.

Enceladus's spear misses her by a millimeter. (Y/n) keeps dodging, but the ground stuck to her feet. Gaea is getting stronger, and the giant is getting faster. Enceladus might be slow, but he isn't dumb. He begins anticipating (Y/n)'s and Jason's moves, and they're attacks are only annoying him, making him more enraged.

"I'm not some minor monster," Enceladus bellows. "I am a giant, born to destroy gods! You're little toothpick can't hurt me!"

Neither (Y/n) or Jason waste energy replying. Jason is already tired. The ground clings to his feet, making him feel like he weighed an extra hundred pounds. The air is full of smoke that burned his lungs. Fires roars around him, stoked by the winds, and the temperature is approaching the heat of an oven.

Jason raises his javelin to block the giant's next strike — a big mistake. Don't fight force with force, a voice chides him — the wolf Lupa, who'd told him that long ago. He manages to deflect the spear, but it grazes his shoulder, and his arm goes numb. He backs up, almost tripping over a burning log. He has to delay — to keep the giant's attention fixed on him while his friends deal with the Earthborn and rescue Piper's dad. He can't fail. He retreats, trying to lure the giant to the edge of the clearing. Enceladus can sense his weariness. The giant smiles, baring his fangs.

"The mighty Jason Grace," he taunts. "Yes, we know about you, son of Jupiter. The one who led the assault on Mount Othrys. The one who single-handedly slew the Titan Krios and toppled the black throne."

Jason's mind reels. He doesn't know these names, yet they makes his skin tingle, as if his body remembers the pain his mind doesn't.

"What are you talking about?" he asks. He realizes his mistake when Enceladus breathes fire.

Distracted, Jason moves too slowly. The blast misses him, but heat blisters his back. He slams into the ground, his clothes smoldering. He is blinded from ash and smoke, choking as he tries to breathe.

He scrambles back as the giant's spear cleaves the ground between his feet.

Jason manages to stand.

(Y/n) moves in front of Jason, and Jason can feel the power radiating off her.

"Ah, the sea god's brat!" Enceladus bellows.

"Piece of shit," (Y/n) replies, and she charges the giant on her own.

Jason can only watch, his body dragging with exhaustion, as (Y/n) advances on the giant.

A lake about fifty feet to (Y/n)'s right explodes, dousing the bonfire, and putting it out, making the clearing darker, and suddenly, Leo, Jason, and Piper feel a strength wash over them as water laps at their shoes.

(Y/n) dodges the first strike, and then stabs the giant in the kneecap, and then jumps off her sword, ripping it out of the giant's knee and scrambles up and stabs him in the ear.

Enceladus lets out a roar so loud, it distracts Piper from her dad. She stares at (Y/n) atop the giant's shoulder, watching as (Y/n) stabs her sword into his neck.

Jason takes a deep breath and charges.

Enceladus shakes (Y/n) off and she rolls, landing on her feet, though she staggers with the momentum.

Jason fakes a strike and rolls between the giant's legs. He comes up quickly, thrusting with all his might, ready to stab the giant in the small of his back, but Enceladus anticipates the trick. He steps aside with too much speed and agility for a giant, as if the earth is helping him move.

He sweeps his spear sideways, meets Jason's javelin – and with a snap like a shotgun blast, the golden weapon shatters.

The force knocks (Y/n) off her feet and squeezes the breath out of her chest.

When she regains her focus, she and Jason are sitting side by side at the rim of a crater. Enceladus stands at the other side, staggering and confused. The javelin's destruction had released so much energy, it had blasted a perfect cone-shaped pit thirty feet deep, fusing the dirt and rock into a slick glassy substance.

Neither Jason or (Y/n) are sure how they'd survived, but their clothes are steaming. Both demigods are out of energy, and Tsunami had skittered across the clearing at Leo's feet.

Both demigods try to get to their feet, but their legs are like lead. Enceladus blinks at the destruction and laughs, "Impressive! Unfortunately, those were your last tricks, demigods.

Enceladus leaps the crater in a single bound, planting his feet on either sides of the demigods. The giant raises his spear, its tip hovering six feet over (Y/n)'s chest.

"And now," Enceladus laughs, "my first sacrifices to Gaea!"

. . .

Time seems to slow down, which was really frustrating since (Y/n) still can't move. She feels herself sinking into the earth like the ground is a waterbed – comfortable, urging her to relax.

(Y/n) can't feel her arms. She can see the tip of the spear coming towards her chest in slow motion. She knows she should move, but she can't. Funny, she thinks. All that effort to stay alive, and then, boom. I'll just lie here helplessly while a fire-breathing giant impales me.

Leo's voice yells, "Heads up!"

A large black metal wedge slammed into Enceladus with a massive thunk! The giant toppled over and slid into the pit.

"Jason, (Y/n), get up!" Piper calls. Her voice energizes (Y/n), shaking her out of her stupor. She sits up, her head groggy, while Piper grabs her under his arms and hauls her to his feet. And then Leo grabs Jason.

"Don't die on me," Piper orders. "You are not dying on me."

"Yes, ma'am." (Y/n) feels light-headed, but Piper is about the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Her hair is smoldering, and her face is smudged with soot. She has a cut on her arm, her dress is torn, and she is missing a boot. Beautiful.

(Y/n) looks down in the crater and sees Enceladus struggling to rise, an ax blade the size of a washing machine stuck in his breastplate.

Amazingly, the giant manages to pull the ax blade free. He yells in pain and the mountain trembles. Golden ichor soaked the front of his armor, but Enceladus stands.

Shakily, he bends down and retrieves his spear.

"Good try." The giant winced. "But I cannot be beaten."

As they watch, the giant's armor mends itself, and the ichor stops flowing. Even the cuts on his dragon-scale legs, which Jason and (Y/n) had worked so hard to make, are now just pale scars.

Leo curses. "What is it with this guy? Die, already!"

"My fate is preordained," Enceladus says. "Giants cannot be killed by gods or heroes."

"Only by both," Jason says. The giant's smile falters, and Jason sees in his eyes something like fear. "It's true, isn't it? Gods and demigods have to work together to kill you."

"You will not live long enough to try!" The giant starts stumbling up the crater's slope, slipping on the glassy sides.

"Anyone have a god handy?" Leo asks.

Jason's heart fills with dread. He looks at the giant below them, struggling to get out of the pit, and he knows what has to happen. "Leo," he says, "if you've got a rope in that tool belt, get it ready." He leaps at the giant with no weapon but his bare hands.

"Enceladus!" Piper yells. "Look behind you!"

It's an obvious trick, but her voice is so compelling, even Jason buys it. The giant says, "What?" and turns like there is an enormous spider on his back.

Jason tackles his legs at just the right moment. The giant loses his balance. Enceladus slams into the crater and slides to the bottom. While he tries to rise, Jason puts his arms around the giant's neck. When Enceladus struggles to his feet, Jason is riding his shoulders.

"Get off!" Enceladus screams. He tries to grab Jason's legs, but Jason scrambles around, squirming and climbing over the giant's hair.

Father, Jason thought. If I've ever done anything good, anything you approved of, help me now I offer my own life — just save my friends.

Suddenly he can smell the metallic scent of a storm. Darkness swallows the sun. The giant freezes, sensing it too.

Jason says to his friends, "Hit the deck!"

And every hair on his head stands straight up.

Crack!

Lightning surges through Jason's body, straight through Enceladus, and into the ground. The giant's back stiffens, and Jason is thrown clear. When he regains his bearings, he is slipping down the side of the crater, and the crater is cracking open. The lightning bolt had split the mountain itself. The earth rumbles and tears apart, and Enceladus's legs slide into the chasm. He claws helplessly at the glassy sides of the pit, and just for a moment manages to hold on to the edge, his hands trembling.

He fixes Jason with a look of hatred. "You've won nothing, boy. My brothers are rising, and they are ten times as strong as I. We will destroy the gods at their roots! You will die, and Olympus will die with —"

The giant loses his grip and falls into the crevice.

The earth shakes. Jason falls toward the rift.

"Grab hold!" Leo yells.

Jason's feet are at the edge of the chasm when he grabs the rope, and Leo, (Y/n), and Piper pull him up.

They stand together, exhausted and terrified, as the chasm closes like an angry mouth. The ground stops pulling at their feet.

For now, Gaea is gone.

Word Count: 8931 words

#piper mclean x reader #piper mclean x jackson reader #percy jackson x sister reader

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pelideswhore · 1 year

Note

HELLO can you explain more about Crete being the home of liars. That's really funny

hello!! yeah!

i first came across this in Emily Wilson’s introduction to her Odyssey: “In Ithaca, he constructs multiple different autobiographies, usually claiming to have come from Crete—the traditional home of liars.”

i did some more digging because that’s an interesting stereotype, and I found that Titus basically made that exact statement in the New Testament claiming, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

That idea probably came from Epimenides, a Cretan himself, stating that, “All Cretans are liars,” an idea which would be known as the Cretan paradox (by saying that, Epimenides implies that he himself is a liar meaning that statement is not true). (x)

This became a whole thing amongst the Greeks, even causing them to coin a new term—“to cretanize” or kretizo, which meant ‘to lie’.

As you can see, this was a widespread idea, so Odysseus identifying himself as a Cretan is quite a silly thing to do, especially when he really wants to go under the radar.

edit: @godsofhumanity has found a mythological source!!! in fact Thetis herself was involved in the origin of this term in this case. On Crete, Medea and Thetis argued over who was the most beautiful and asked a local to judge for them (*sigh*). When he said Thetis, Medea got angry and called all Cretans liars, cursing them to never say the truth again. (x)

I think it’s kinda funny to consider that this happened only a single generation before the Iliad so Odysseus calling himself a Cretan is extra ironic when the association between them and liars is recent and fresh.

#wolfythewitch #greek mythology #greek myth #asks #odysseus #the odyssey #ancient crete #there’s another source that just refuses to link!!!!!#updated

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chronic-ghost · 9 months

Text

Chapter 9 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 11845

chapter summary: if you thought you knew the full story of natalie lorraine, you were myth-taken

chapter warnings/tags: non-consensual touching, implied sexual assault, emotionally abusive parents, drug/alcohol use, underaged drug/alcohol use, women existing in the male gaze, putting too much of myself into characters as per yooshg

a/n: Header comes from the “Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses” by John William Waterhouse. Song for this chapter is Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac – watch me make a fic playlist after the fact lmao. Bear with me while I wax embarrassingly poetic about my favorite oc blorbo. Remember this does end well!!!

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There are many different types of myth but, essentially, they can be grouped into three: etiological myths, historical myths, psychological myths. Etiological myths can offer explanations for why the world is the way it is. Historical myths retell an event from the past but elevate it with greater meaning than the actual event (if it even happened). [Lastly] psychological myths present one with a journey from the known to the unknown which, according to both Jung and Campbell, represents a psychological need to balance the external world with one's internal consciousness of it. – Mythology, Joshua Mark

“in front of my mother and my sisters,

i pretend love is cheap and vulgar.

i act like it’s a sin–

i pretend that love is for women on a dark path.

but at night i dream of a love so heavy

it makes my spine throb–

i dream up a lover who makes love like he is

separating salt from water.”

— Salma Deera, “salt”

Natalie Lorraine is a myth.

And like in all the great myths, birth is a painful, violent emergence.

Slowly, labored across years and many heartbeats, what remains is the inevitable conclusion of being fucked over, of being lazy and careless, of innocence taken too soon. Careless children grow up to be careless mothers, careless fathers.

The titans of the world leave to make their mark on history and, in doing so, mark their children in a way more powerful, more regretful than any legend could possibly make them out to be.

Medea is brutalized in legends and in verse for the most heinous a mother can commit.

Odysseys forgets what being a father means.

Oedipus Rex curses his children with an unforgivable sin by way of their mother, their grandmother, and that staggering failure is felt through to Antigone, a generation removed. Antigone dies. Haemon and Eurydice die too. Pain and grief are family heirlooms passed through pale fingers at the stroke of midnight.

But despite all that. Before all that.

Myths begin when the heroes are forced to make a choice, choose a direction in the way their lives end up. It might not always be obvious, and the gods might have things in store for them. But there is a choice and the fallen hero always chooses.

But they were all children once. You have to remember that. You have to believe that.

(Aetiologic)

I hate these socks, you think to yourself, they’re itchy and they hurt my toes. Every time you swing your legs over the edge of that leather couch, your legs too short to touch the ground, the toe of your shoe pinches you. You really, really want to take off your shoes, but Mom said you had to keep them on all day, especially in the office. In his office. You think your dress looks like one of your baby dolls and you don’t like it.

So you stop kicking, even though the sound of your heel against the leather made a funny noise. You can move too, and make the leather squeak, and that is pretty fun too. Grinning, you bounce like you aren’t supposed to on your bed back home, the cushions chirping – it sounds like they’re farting – you giggle, rocking back on your hands from left to right, squealing along with the leather as you made it –

“Enough!”

You freeze, tears immediately welling in your eyes, fear almost painful in your chest.

But he’s not talking to you. Your father is still in his office, with the door barely shut, and he’s talking to someone on the phone. Yelling, actually. He’s been in there since the little hand was on the fifteen and now it’s on the thirty. He told you to wait there while he called your mom. You tried to sit still, but it was boring and all the toys were back in the other room.

He never yelled at you, your dad, but he did yell at your mom.

When you talked to the other kids in your preschool class, their mommies and daddies lived in the same house together, slept in the same bed, talked nicely to each other. Yours didn’t.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with her, LeAnne? I told you I have a meeting at four today and she could be here for three hours. I told you! I can’t have her here! You need to come pick up your daughter!”

Your foot kicks up and down. You didn’t like it when they talked about you like you weren’t there.

“Hey there.” A woman with blonde hair and big eyes sits down next to you. She was always around your dad, and always handled his papers and briefcase and sometimes his coffee. She is younger than your mom but way older than you are. You think she’s really, really pretty. None of her dresses look like baby doll dresses. “I’m sorry your dad is taking so long. Do you want something to eat, or drink?”

You shake your head. Your mom said not to talk to strangers, so you didn’t open your mouth.

“Are you bored? Do you wanna watch some TV?”

TVs were everywhere in your dad’s office building. Down near the elevators, and then more when you got out. It always seemed like people were watching a tv and the actors on the tv. Actors were people whose job it was to be on the tv or in the movies, your dad told you. He told you he knew a lot of famous actors, but when you told the kids in your class about it, they said they didn’t know any of those people.

“You’re just making things up!”

“You’re a liar!”

You really wanted your dad to introduce you to an actor, just to prove them wrong. You thought it was pretty cool how everyone was always watching them. Like they couldn’t look away.

You nod at the pretty lady. She smiles and picks up the skinny black tv remote on the table in front of the couch.

The tv in the corner of the room pops on. The size of it doesn’t take up the wall like some of the tvs in the office do, but it’s still bigger than the one you have at home.

The nice lady taps the button a few times, the channels changing, until she comes to the kids channel. It’s a little old for you – all of the shows at preschool are cartoons and this one has real people in it – but you want this woman to like you.

“Do you like this one? Friends in the Family? It’s so funny!”

She turns and leans back against the couch with you. You hear people laughing on the screen, even though you don’t see anyone. There’s a young girl, older than you but younger than this nice lady, and she has a boy with her on her parents’ couch. The boy leans in and kisses her cheek and the invisible people go ‘oooooh’.

“Ooooh!” You mimic and the nice woman laughs, grinning at you. Something warm and tight goes up your chest, and you pinch your lip with your teeth, toes curling in your stupid shoes. You liked making her laugh.

On the screen, a little girl – maybe the other girl’s sister – pushes through the kitchen door. You gasp in surprise. She looks like she could be in your preschool class. She’s all mad and she crosses her arms, pouting.

“Someone’s gonna get it!”

The invisible people laugh and the nice lady giggles so hard she leans forward and you’re giggling too, even though you don’t quite get it. That warm feeling reminds you of when you drink soda too fast, but it’s good.

You frown too, put your hands on your hips, parroting the little girl on tv, “someone’s gonna get it!”

Her pretty mouth opens in surprise, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh my God, that was so good! You sound just like her!” You giggle, your face hot. “Have you ever asked your dad about acting?”

You shake your head. You, an actor? On tv? No way!

“Well, you should! You could be really good!”

You don’t know what to say, you want to keep making the same faces that little girl is, when your dad’s door opens. The young woman next to you lurches forward and shuts off the tv. He comes out and you can’t tell if he’s angry or upset or if that’s just how he looks. You’re not around him enough to know. But he stands in front of you, thinking something.

“Judy, would you get us two juice boxes from the fridge downstairs?”

“Of course, Mr. Milken.”

The young woman leaves and you’re a little afraid. You don’t want him to yell at you for watching that show for older kids. You twist your little fingers.

“That was your mom on the phone. She’s going to be a little late.”

You nod. “Okay.”

“Did you have fun today at my office? Did you like meeting all my friends?”

You nod, this time quicker. “Yes! I would like to meet an actor one day!”

At that, he smiles and you relax. People who are angry don’t smile.

“While we wait for your mom, do you wanna play paper football?”

“What’s that?”

“C’mon. I’ll show you.”

So the myth begins. All it takes is a single idea. A single want. A single desire. An innately human desire. We build myths and we tell stories and we fill them with the things we want to hear.

You’re turning fourteen next month. It’s circled on your calendar in your bedroom. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal, but at least now you could start the emancipation process. If you wanted to. You laid awake at night, thinking about what you’d call yourself if you ever changed your name. Something vaguely French-sounding. European for sure. But they were just fantasies to get you through the day.

It’s early in the morning. You haven’t heard anything from Mom’s room in a while so you figure it’s just the two of you in the house again. You totter out of your room, blinking sleep from your eyes – it was a very late night on set last night and probably would be again, given how the production of this made-for-tv movie was going and especially with the extra homework you’ve been doing to make up for the time off you’ve taken – as you wander across the small, sun-streaked living room, and around the corner to the kitchen. You hear something from the fridge and just as you are about to ask your mom if she’s cooking (which is never a good idea), a man stands up. He’s older than you but younger than your mom and he has the last piece of your sourdough bread in his mouth. He smirks and you unconsciously tug down the hem of your sleep shorts.

This has been happening more and more lately. The way men, older men, look at you, it’s different now. Has been for a while, but now there’s more of them, their gazes sit on your bare skin longer, the light in their eyes changing, the lines around their mouths tightening. You don’t really know what it is they want, but it’s baffling to you that they think looking at you like that will convince you to give anything to them.

It's the way your mom’s new boyfriend is looking at you. Your cheeks heat up without your consent and you hate it.

He’s hungry and he’s scrounging around in the fridge and now he’s looking at you. Still hungry.

“Hey, you must be LeAnne’s daughter,” he says, taking the bread slice out of his mouth and propping his hairy arm on the top of the refrigerator door, his gaze sweeping you from head to toe as if deciding whether or not to make a sandwich out of you. Who likes this kind of shit? Oh, that’s right. Your mom.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Yeah. That’s me. Is she here?”

His eyes follow the backs of your thighs as you walk over to the coffee pot and take out week-old coffee grounds. They’ve turned blue, started to mold, but you dump them out into the trash with three good smacks.

“Uh, she’s still in bed. She said you could get to school on your own.”

Behind you, the fridge door slams shut and you curl your toes, begging yourself not to flinch. There’s something inside of you demanding you to not show weakness. Steadying your own hand, you dig into the jar holding the coffee grounds. It’s halfway empty, you make a note to pick up some later, the thought pressed up against the swell of panic that’s growing at the edge of your awareness.

“I’m Alan.” He leans up against the counter out of the corner of your eye. “I know we just met, but I could take you, to school . . . if you want.”

His thick middle has nothing to do with age, only poor health. Evident further by his off-yellow teeth and bad breath.

“I’m o-okay. Thank you.”

There’s three minutes left on the coffee timer. His gaze is like open palms on your skin. You hate it. He sidles up closer and your nails dig half-moon crescents into your skin. The lovely smell of coffee brewing is overwhelmed by his cheap cologne. He’s big. Bigger than you. Bigger than any of the boys in your class, or any of the men on set. You’ve never really noticed the men on set, they’ve never been this close before, but you’re sure he’s bigger than all of them.

You’ve never felt quite so small.

“You were in that movie, right? ‘Those ain’t your average space-invaders’, that was you right?” You nod, the back of your throat drying out. He chuckles. “You were good. Really good. You were so pretty.”

“I was ten.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Ten outta ten.”

Your stomach clenches and it’s like he can tell. Alan reaches the two inches across the linoleum and gently strokes your forearm. A light, smelly panic sweat breaks out over your forehead, under your armpits.

You want him away from you, want him gone, to run back to your room, but where would that get you?

Roll over, play dead, show your under belly. You don’t know what else to do to make him go away.

“Well, if you see my mom,” you ease around him, your forearm sliding from his grasp just as his fingers tighten, making sure you don’t seem offended, “tell her I’ve got a ride to–,”

“Hey, wait, where ya going?”

You all but run back to your room, the coffee pot beeping behind you. You throw open your bedroom door and leap inside, locking it behind you. You don’t realize you’re panting until you feel light-headed, dizzy – you feel sticky all of a sudden and rush into your bathroom. Steam pours from the scalding hot water, the red handle all the way to the right, as you stand over it, watching it rush down the drain. With your lips pinched between your teeth, you run your hands under it and muffle a scream. It hurts. It burns but it’s like his touch is evaporating off your skin and there’s relief in that. It’s the first time you realize that the pain you give yourself is different from the pain that they give you.

Not all of them are like that.

Some of them are actually kind of okay.

You’re fifteen and dressed as a pumpkin for the Halloween party hosted by the studio, the suit baggy and oversized, and for once, your mom’s friends don’t stare at you. No one really has all night and it’s nice. You feel like you can ease into the wall and no one would notice. There’s a long black couch on the other side of a plant with glowing lights in the shape of ghosts wrapped around its trunk. You stepside around a few directors, one of your other actors, and head straight for the couch.

You don’t realize Jim, your mom’s current boyfriend is already there until you sit down and groan. He laughs from the opposite end and you jump.

He’s more her age, thankfully, and doesn’t really seem to notice if you’re at home or not. In fact, you can’t really remember another conversation with him that lasted longer than a few minutes.

“You liking the party?” He asks.

You shrug – never show your actual feelings. “It’s kinda late. I’ve got classes on Monday, so I’m hoping to make it an early night.”

He nods, slowly, distracted. There’s something about his eyes that isn’t right. Not in the way that he looks at you, but at everything, like he’s trying to look through a dense fog.

Your mother is nowhere to be found, which isn’t entirely out of the ordinary for this sort of thing. She’d either show up and be the life of the party or show up so trashed she had to be escorted out of the building.

But it is odd for her to just leave one of her toys lying around.

“Do you know where my mom is?” You ask Jim and he shakes his head, as though it takes a considerable amount of effort just to hold himself upright. There’s definitely something wrong with him.

And then you see the smoke coming from his fingers and you finally realize that skunky smell is coming from him.

He sees your gaze fall. “You want a hit?” He asks, either not remembering your question or not wanting to answer.

You’d never tried it before, not really having time between shooting schedules and school and your mom wanting to take you out to meet new casting directors and writers. You sit there, staring and realize Jim is probably one of the only consistent people you see in your life, everyone else a revolving door of names and faces and elbows to rub. A tiredness breaks over you like the push of a wave and you sway, wanting nothing more than to be at home under the covers. You wish you’d brought your walkman, so you could have hid out on the soundstage until the party was over.

You’d grown skinny over the past year. Rewarded and praised for it by producers and studio execs, you saw that people listened to you more, looked you in the eye when you were beautiful, made more beautiful by the thinness of your cheeks, your narrow thighs. Your mother was convinced you were taking pills, but couldn’t find anything in the house. And yet, the real reason behind it all was sometimes you were just too tired to eat. Too tired to move. Happy to curl up wherever you found yourself and sleep until the next person needed something from you.

But this is what you wanted, after all. You asked for a life of movies and revolving doors and fake people and men staring at your ass. You are reminded of this all the time.

You nod at Jim, curiosity getting the better of you and wondering if other girls did this sort of thing in basements or with their friends or boyfriends. You portray a teenage girl on television, but sometimes you don’t feel like one at all.

He reaches out to you and you take it. You’d smoke a cigarette once, with a few of the kids from that one time you guest-starred on that sitcom, so you think this’ll be the same.

“What’s it going to feel like?” You ask, the white paper inches from your lips. Jim looked at you and his eyes sort of crinkled.

“It’s good. Real good. Like there’s a cloud between you and the rest of the world.”

That did sound nice.

You put your lips and inhale – it burns in a way you weren’t expecting – and you cough. Jim laughs in a way that makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong, that you’re silly.

“You’ll get it,” he says, “you’ll get it.”

You try again and remember that he held his breath before exhaling. You do the same, but the scratch makes your eyes water, your chest tighten, but you hold on, until you feel smoke cauterizing the back of your throat close and you cough again, less this time.

Jim laughs again and takes back the skunky cigarette. “Hey, look at that, your first joint and you handled it like a champ.”

He smokes more, losing interest in you, so he turns and watches the party. Your heart beats roughly in your chest, but that might be more of the nerves than anything else. You fidget on the couch, waiting for something to happen, but it never does.

“I think I need another h-hit. I don’t feel anything.”

Jim frowns at you, shaking his head. “Hell no. You took two giant puffs on your first go. I’m not babysitting you when you’re puking in the toilet with the spins.”

“The spins?”

“When you drink while you’re high. Can be a real bad mix.”

You blush, wondering if he saw you take sips from the flask in your purse or he just assumes you’re always drinking because you’re LeAnne’s daughter.

“Just sit back, relax, you’ll feel it. In a bit.”

So you try his approach, nonchalantly watching people dressed in devil costumes, in white vampire fangs and cloaks, little skimpy bunny outfits, as the party rages on. You watch, and slowly, the whole thing feels distant. Like you’re in the far back of a theater and everything in front of you is some sort of stage.

You find you like it in the back row, in the quiet and the darkness. It’s warm, sort of like you’re dizzy but you sway with the movement and you don’t get sick. You find that you are rolling your head back and forth and you giggle.

Jim smirks at you, that joint almost gone. “Yeah, there it is.”

You’d never been high like this before. Buzzed a little bit from the beer in your flask, but this was new. This was . . .

“It’s nice,” you smile widely to the ceiling. “Does it always feel this way?”

“Like I said, you can mix with alcohol and get really fucked up.” Jim shrugs. “And different strains do different things. This is gonna relax your brain, but there’s others that’ll give you a body high.”

Body, this thing you’re in that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.

“But a mental high from weed and a mental high from glue are like two totally different things.”

Your bones feel like they weigh a thousand pounds and you could just melt into the leather. But you turn your head, dropping it against the back of the couch.

“You can get high from glue?”

“You can get high from just about anything.”

“Oh.”

The needle-like feeling that pricks your heart every time you come to one of these parties is gone. The sloshy oozy feeling in your stomach when you go into public with your mother is gone. There is nothing left inside of you except weight and heat and air that comes in through your nose and out through your mouth.

You giggle again. What if this is how a pumpkin feels all the time?

“Will it always feel like this?”

He doesn’t understand your question, doesn’t care enough to think about it, so he answers the only way he can. “Nah, should only last for a few hours. Then you’re good. No hangover, which is a plus.”

“But I always want it to feel this way.”

He grins again and pulls out a small plastic baggy with some fuzzy brussel-sprout-looking vegetable inside.

“Got twenty bucks on you?”

You’re sixteen and you’ve just started in your first major motion picture. Offers are rolling in, you no longer have to seek them out. The brand new telephone for your brand new house is constantly ringing. You have to unplug it to sleep at night. But that usually makes your mother yell at you.

She wants to answer every call that comes through. As if this house was hers.

You sit cross-legged on your bed, grinding up the weed you bought off a sound-stage guy earlier today in your silver grinder, your headphones in to drown out the noises coming from the other side of the house as well as the ones in your head.

This boyfriend was not so nice and in a drunken stupor grabbed your ass in front of LeAnne. She raged and yelled and blamed you.

Get out, she told you. Leave. Get out. We don’t want you here. Leave.

This is my house, you old bitch.

Licking the paper gently, you finish rolling the joint and press pause on your walkman. Stevie Nicks pauses in her crooning, and is it over now, do you know how? pick up the pieces and go home, and you remind yourself to find a purply drape at the next flee market. Reaching to the end of the bed, you plug in your headphones to the hot pink tv and flip to the right station.

Henry had sent in a new tv for your birthday, and you had that promptly thrown out. You bought this with your first check from residuals.

It’s almost eleven. It’s about to start.

You light the joint, inhaling smoothly, as the credits for Twenty-Three and Fun start up.

The joint quivers at the end of your knee, your toes curling. It wasn’t produced by your father’s company, but it was all anyone talked about at school, in the gossip mags. You thought about buying Tiger Beat just for the pictures . . . of one specific cast member.

You bite your nail as the theme song plays and the credits roll through all the gorgeous, young actors smiling as they go about their perfectly average lives in the big city.

And then his name shows up and you inhale smoke quickly to stifle the thing expanding in your chest.

Dieter Bravo.

His smooth soft hair, dark sweet eyes. God, he is so cute.

Your hand clenches the sheets. You’ve never had a boyfriend, only been kissed once while at dance in between shooting schedules that you’d begged your mom to let you attend. It was bad, it tasted bad, his lips were rubbery and wet, and you didn’t feel anything.

Not like when you imagine what it would be like to be kissed by him.

Twenty-Three and Fun is out of your demographic, but maybe you could convince someone to let you try out for the part of someone’s little sister who comes in for the weekend. You’d just love the chance to meet him. He makes you feel like nothing you’ve ever felt before, nothing you know what to do with, but you tingle all over with it.

You’re at the tail end of sixteen when the spiral starts.

When you don’t know where to put this loneliness that’s been dragging you down.

Men stare at you but not in the way you want. Girls your own age won’t look at you, and women glare at you while their husbands stare. And boys, God, boys your own age –

You wipe the tears from your eyes, the wind snarling through your hair, the heat of the summer night sinking into your skin like wet clay. You know you’re driving too fast, but you don’t care.

Every day you go to work and put on someone else’s skin. Their clothes. Their face. For a while, it’s been freeing, to pretend to have normal problems, a normal family, a normal life. Because you knew even if you had never chosen to go into your father’s industry – which was now just as much yours – you knew your life wasn’t ever going to be normal. Not in the way it mattered anyway.

But there is something there when you step in front of a camera. A feeling that doesn’t come from a dark place, from feelings of abandonment and loneliness – it comes from a place inside of you that still feels like you own, still is yours to hold and keep safe, despite everyone taking things from you without asking. Instead of taking, it gives. It builds. It grows, despite the salted earth of your soul.

You like becoming someone else for a while, thinking as they do. Dancing, laughing, eating, playing as someone other than yourself. You like to create. You crave it. You create life for someone else that doesn’t exist and you love it. It feels right, imagining something if not for you, for someone else. Someone who looks like you but isn’t you. It feels good to dream.

But lately.

Lately, this job is no longer an act of creation. It’s fake smiles and ad campaigns and commercials and it feels rotten. Hollow. Like you’re under the eyes of a thousand leering men instead of just one. It feels cheap. You feel cheap, for wanting it to be something more. This desire for life itself dies in your hands, choked out, aborted before it had the chance to breathe.

Your body, yourself, is being twisted, molded into something you don’t want it to become and the only time, the only time you feel as though you have even some slight control is when you have none at all. When you detach from your corporeal form, so high or drunk you can’t feel your fingers.

It began with the beer your mom’s boyfriends left in the fridge, then the pills in her medicine cabinet. Then the mini bottles of Crown Royal and Jim Beam in the mini-fridges at your dad’s office. No one ever seemed to care when you swiped the whole row into your backpack. Maybe others had done the exact same thing.

You didn’t know how or why these things made you feel better but they did. You didn’t care about the tears on your face, the hot flood of anger beating in your chest, and you didn’t care about the speed limit, not even when you saw the flashing red and blue lights.

But you started to care when they put you in lock up and then you definitely did when your father’s lawyer bailed you out.

You went home and threw up for six hours. No one came to check on you, no one came to find you when you yanked the phone cord out of the wall. You clutched the porcelain basin of the toilet for what felt like days. Years. You aged decades that night.

When you woke up, you showered, ate, and called back your father’s lawyer.

You had decided on a name, a new name to put on the emancipation papers.

You told the lawyer very clearly and seriously over the phone: “I want my name to be Natalie Lorraine.”

It was the emancipation that finally did it. The final chop from the parental vine. The day she kicked you out, you came home from school, in between shoots for a new film with Gerard Butler and in talks for something with Helen Miram, and you find your mother curled up on the kitchen table. At first, you legitimately thought she was dead; the top half of her body was crumpled against the wood, her feet tangled with the rungs of the chair. She faced away from you, her right hand curled around an empty crystal tumbler and a three-fourths empty bottle of Belvedere inches from her fingertips.

You stare, dumb-founded, your heart so slow you could hear it pound like a drum in your ears. And then she twitches.

And then she wails.

“How could you? How could you do this to me? I’m your mother. You owe me. You owe me you owe me you owe me.”

She heaves boneless to the floor, the glass and bottle slipping out of her hand and shattering like droplets of rain. You can’t move, transfixed, as your mother, hands split open, knees carving bloody trails across the tile, drags herself towards your feet, like a freshly dug-up corpse.

She’s muttering, spitting, snarling – she’s a starved, beaten beast, ready to make its last stand.

You were a mistake

You ruined me

You ruined your father for me

Her sentences are blurred, notched together, overlapping, and intertwining. The only thing you remember is the vitriol and hatred more palpable than her own breath.

Someone older, someone more separated from their pink, flushed girlhood would have the callouses to ease the burn, dull the cut. But at sixteen, you didn’t. At sixteen, with a burgeoning substance abuse problem and at the mercy of the first of many instances where adulthood begins to rob you of the small pleasures of life, you watch your mother crumble and it scares you.

In that moment you want nothing more than to be taken care of, in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s asking too much but it clearly is. You want to be safe in a way that is primal, the animal fear of the dark and unknown. You’ve seen your mother drunk before but not this drunk, never heard the sounds she’s making — the wailing, the disappointment, the sorrow and rage. It scares you so badly you want to cry.

The gap between girlhood and womanhood is closed when you understand your mother is only human. Nothing less. And nothing more.

She’s still muttering hateful, horrible things as you take her to her feet and ease her onto the couch.

She’s silent when you throw a blanket over her.

She’s pale, shaking, green.

Go away. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you around me. Leave me alone.

Leave me.

Go away.

You leave her, not knowing if it's serious enough to call 911, if you can actually die from drinking too much, but that fear, that vice-grip around your chest, it’s squeezing your lungs so tightly, tears leak out of the corner of your eyes. But then it sinks. Sinks into your bones, your blood, your muscles. Watching your mother folded up like a broken doll, you experience fear like you’ve never felt before.

Blink and you’re in your room.

Blink and you’re under your bed, curled up, knees to your chin, and you’re crying. You can’t stop crying. It’s the only thing that seems to appease the fear, the sense that nothing is real and everything is going to turn out badly and it makes your stomach twist. You gag on your own spit and you shake and you tremble and you experience your first panic attack without anyone to tell you what’s going on. How to survive something like that. You grow up thinking this is how everyone lives and you’re just too pathetic to take it. You let that shame and embarrassment fester and grow because it has no way of stopping.

Your father is also served with the papers.

Two weeks later, the production for your upcoming movie was suddenly put on hold. The role with Helen Miriam went to someone else.

He never helped you get ahead in the industry, but he absolutely blocked you from it. He never called you again.

Someone, someone else, might have been hurt by the fact that your father cut you off without so much as a goodbye. But it’s not like you could miss what you never had.

You take the hint and enroll in UC Santa Barbara under your new name.

The myth of your maidenhood ended in much of the same way it began: at the behest of someone else and exiled as an afterthought.

You tried the whole sleep-around-to-fill-a-need thing for the freshmen year of college. It didn’t take. You liked sex but you liked the chase more. You liked the hunt, the thrill, the unconscious desire to touch, when the desire to do something first emerges in their heads. You like to watch the basic urge emerge in their darkened eyes before the other shoe drops. Drops and splatters coherent and rational thought like a bug on a windshield.

You liked sex, even if more often you had to get yourself off while your partner had fallen asleep, their needs met. But you liked being wanted more. The drugs helped bridge the gap and given that you had no idea how to make friends because you'd never had one your own age before, the puddles of bodies that dripped onto couches and floors at parties seemed to be as good a social circle as any. They all started to recognize you at parties, in lecture halls, at bars. They nodded, you nodded back, and you sat down.

No longer alone.

But not entirely wanted either.

It was enough though.

By your third year, you were known more for your party provisions (with your old contacts from the industry) than your ex-boyfriends.

You meet Heidi Morgan through one of your production management professors.

You’d gone in to speak with your professor, a man notorious for sleeping with his students, and believed you to be next in line (men were so much better at doing what you asked when they thought you’d sleep with them), so you were hoping that you could convince him that it was actually your lab partner who stole the paper from you, not the other way around, when you see him with someone else.

Blonde, small, feisty.

Heidi Morgan takes one look at the grotesque ogling in his eyes and promptly introduces herself.

In her own fire and take-no-shit attitude, you find kindred spirits.

She later asks you out for drinks, you think it’s been too long since you went down on a girl, and you completely misread the situation.

She clears things up and then asks you to read for a part. The whiplash makes your head spin, but given that she’s not calling you a giant slut, it’s probably good news.

She knows who you are. Suspected because you looked familiar and because she has friends in some truly weird places, she confirms her suspicions by the end of the day. So she gives you a call, you show up, flirt too much, and maybe end up with a job.

She gives you the script. It’s good.

Really good.

Why me? You ask her. You graduate in two weeks. You’re turning twenty-two in a few days. There’s nothing you’ve done in recent years to make her have this kind of faith in you. All digital memories of you reflect a knobby-kneed, round-cheeked little girl then that same little girl with tits and a smirk well beyond her years.

She didn’t think she might find her lead in a dingy auditorium, she says, but crazier things have happened. It’s not a guarantee, or a promise, just an offer. Try out, see what happens.

Crazier things have happened.

The rest is less myth and more old history.

(Historic)

The day you meet him is not unlike any other. Except in the little things. Your bra strap breaks when you go to put it on. Your belt loop gets caught in a door handle and nearly shucks your pants to the floor. You somehow get lost on the way to the studio even though you have your phone mapping the route. It takes you around and around and around until you get out and ask a very confused gas station attendant where the fuck the sound stage is.

It’s not momentous. Annoying, perhaps, so annoying that all these little things pester your brain like flies gorging on rotten fruit. You’re distracted, one eye always glancing over your shoulder. Trouble, trouble, trouble, your problems seem to whisper, you’re in trouble.

A PA comes to find you, saying Heidi specifically asked for your presence but she’s gone missing. He thinks he knows where to find her, if you’d come with him. You eye him up from the black leather couch you’re draped across, irritated at the day and at him for his shameless staring. You nod, and immediately he starts running his mouth about his own Hollywood dreams. He’s a writer, you know, maybe you’ve heard of some of his smaller indie work, it’s not very much, but folks who know say it's good so maybe he’ll be able to sell it if –

The door to the back of the lot opens and it’s like god snapped his fingers in your ear. It’s not momentous, or earth-shattering, but holy shit does it fuck you up.

He’s broad. Tall. Forearms, thick and veiny, stocky thumbs and tense fingers. His hair is just on the edge of being long, but combed back in some attempt to tame it, to fold it into submission. His right earlobe is puckered, pierced, but no earring. His beard and mustache are trimmed, clean shaven elsewhere. Despite how he’s built out adult male muscle from his days on Twenty-Three and Fun, he still has those boyish eyes, a dimple that would drive anyone up a wall, and eyelashes you’d pay a thousand dollars for. You knew this was coming but it still feels like a kick in the chest.

That kick burns when you realize something.

He’s fucking pissed. He’s beautiful, carved from your very dreams of what the most gorgeous man on earth would look like, but he’s fucking pissed.

Surprisingly, at you.

Well, that’s disappointing.

He comes at you with his claws drawn and you’ve never, ever been one to back down. You swipe back and hope you draw blood.

You discover other things about Dieter Bravo, the boy who you used to have a heart-stopping crush on when you didn’t know anything better. Fantasy will always be better than reality, and this isn’t exactly how you’d thought your first meeting would go.

And yet, you discover something else, something very, very curious. Something soft and impressionable, bruised purple and green. Something you want to lean on with your entire weight until he chokes. It’s ugly, but it’s amusing. Maybe this is how you hoped your first meeting would go, albeit with some tricky obstacles and a ticking clock.

You want to press and see what spills out.

Dieter Bravo cannot and does not look away from you.

The day you meet Dieter Bravo is also the day you meet The Sixers, the day you meet Marie. She’s small, mousy, but apparently a fucking rock star on the drums. You like the irony; quiet and unassuming until she bangs through your head with percussion. Where the rest of her bandmates are wide-eyed and eager and come with more drugs than a pharmacy, there’s something about Marie that you find so tenderly earnest you kind of wish you didn’t come dressed like you were going out to eat the fleshly hearts of men everywhere. You want to approach her on her level. You don’t want to scare her away. There’s something redemptive about a kind, sweet girl like Marie striking up a friendship with you.

If you could ever figure out how to start one.

“Excited for the filming to start?” You ask her after nearly everyone’s picked up their things and left after the reading. She glances at you, then over her shoulder, as if you were talking to someone else. You instantly feel insanely protective of her.

She blinks a few times before distractedly shaking her head. “No. I’m actually terrified.”

“About being in a movie?”

She cringes, as if it’s the most shameful thing in the world.

“Yeah. I love playing in front of crowds, but something about being on camera scares me.”

You make a note to find out the next time they’re playing live.

“It’s honestly not that bad. It feels a little weird, like some unblinking eye staring at you, but then it just kind of fades away.”

She bites her lip, tucking that short brown hair over her ear. “Have you done this before?”

You’re not exactly hiding your childhood movie star past, but you don’t really want it broadcasted.

“Here and there.”

The rest of her bandmates are chatting amongst themselves, perhaps not yet aware you’re trying to befriend one of them. You’re not quite sure how it’s going.

“If you ever want, we could talk and I could give you some pointers.”

Fuck, why did that sound like a line? It shouldn’t. You didn’t want it to. Where was the line between asking someone to be your friend and asking someone for a fuck?

If she notices your embarrassment, she doesn't show it. She grins brightly, unashamed. “Yes! Oh my god, yes, please. I’d love that!”

Normally, when giving someone your number, you’d grab their hand and write it in Sharpie, giving them a good wink. Now you tear off a corner of the call sheet and write down your number in shaking hands. It’s a small piece of paper, easily lost. That’s okay, if she does lose it. No need to freak out.

She’s grinning, smile expanding across that round face of hers as she takes your number when someone calls her name.

Roxie, the one with bright-red flaming hair and gorgeously thick eyebrows, takes a glance at the piece of paper in Marie’s fingers. One eyebrow arches, and she says nothing.

Roxie looks at you like she wants to devour you whole. You think you’ll let her.

You decide to ignore him.

Whatever his problem with you is, it doesn’t have to be dealt with immediately. Maybe he’ll come around and if not, no skin off your nose. It’s none of your business what happens off camera, what he thinks about you as a person. All that matters is giving a good performance and you know you can do that.

You just sort of wish you had known more about the role before Heidi offered it. You really sort of wish you had known Dieter was going to be your co-star. That night, after approaching him in the parking lot, you had two glasses of wine to settle your trembling nerves, and you flipped through the script.

He was so calm and collected at the table read today. Cool, relaxed, at ease with himself and the world. Everyone knew him, everyone talked about him, either directly to you or in snatches of conversation.

Dieter Bravo – you could not ask for a better scene partner!

Dieter Bravo – he’s so, so nice. He always stops for fans!

Dieter Bravo – this shoot is going to be so much fun with him!

You’d never been particularly star-struck, but for the first time in your life, the idea of working with your co-star was daunting. When you were up against Gerard Butler, you’d been in the game for a while, knew the industry, showed up in the trades. Now, you felt like any other Santa Barbara graduate stumbling out in front of the camera for the first time. Where was that all-knowing smirk you had perfected at fifteen? God, had you always been so transparent?

You felt like you had to prove yourself at that table read. You know you were going a bit overboard, but they watched you, transfixed, and it empowered you. Mark Bronson, Marie, the rest of The Sixers, they watched you like Taylor had possessed your body and you instantly became a rockstar.

Only, he didn’t. He watched you and didn’t look away, but he looked so uninterested in your performance, the tears that filled your eyes were partially real.

And then he touched you and in that moment, you knew he was mocking you. Laughing at you, you fucking child. He was the legendary star here, not you, and to think you ever had a chance was laughable. The heat of disgust in his eyes hurt, more than you wanted to admit.

It was day one and he hated you.

Things escalate.

He caught you high on set and it felt like you were being scolded by your older brother. He didn’t get it. He never did. All that shit about how he knows what it’s like – bullshit. All fucking bullshit. He was somehow always in the corner of your eye, watching you, begging you to fuck up so he could expose you like the fraud you are.

And a pathetic fraud you are at that. He touches you and it’s like algae, hot and dense, spreading across your skin. You fight the feeling that strokes your cunt and you grit your teeth. Stop touching me, go away, stay back – please.

You’re twenty-two and still harboring that fucking crush you had when you were sixteen. It’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic. It’s so, so, so wrong.

You try to ignore him. Try to exorcize him from your every waking thought. It doesn’t take. You get drunk at the pool party and you want his eyes, anyone’s eyes, on you.

Marie is shy, you try to sober up around her, but you’re too far gone and you don’t want her to see you like this.

So you find Roxie. And Samuel. They give you something that makes your pupils dilate to the size of quarters and you feel like you’re made of cosmic dust. When they touch you, beauty and awe and the atoms of the universe bloom across your skin. You like kissing them, you decide. The water dripping off you from the pool feels like bad lovers and broken kingdoms up for sale.

You end up at his door. You don’t mean to. You genuinely forgot what room you were in.

Consciously, you know he’s married. Consciously, you know he hates you. But that doesn’t stop you from asking anyway.

“You could join us, you know.”

You want so badly to be his theatrical equal that it hurts, it burns hotter for a moment than your desire for him, and he just stares at you. Consciousness somewhere in a nearby galaxy, you can’t read the look on his face. And then it blurs, he closes the door, and the entire hallway grows thick, heavy leaves.

Disappointment is a physical object and it burrows into your chest. You think you can feel your ribs moving to make room.

Sam and Roxie fuck on your bed while you’re curled up on the futon. You don’t even change out of your suit. You kick them out as soon as they are done, not wanting their hungry gazes to turn to you.

This is always the worst part. When the emotions and memories that you’ve managed to pry off you as you coat yourself in a protective layer of LSD, finally come back. They wrap around you like a vice and you can feel the beginnings of a panic attack start in the tremble of your fingers. You stay there in the armchair, damp and cold and shivering and trying not to choke on your own throat, until the early hours of the morning. You think you could die like this but you don’t. You never actually do.

He doesn’t bring it up and neither do you. You sort of wish he would, just for a chance to . . . no, that’s fucked up and, if not legally, morally wrong. You can’t wish for anything when it comes to him.

It’s easier to hate him. To pretend like he was some over-involved, self-obsessed diva who stepped on your lines on purpose and flat-out refused to run scenes with you. It was easier as a whole for a while.

Marie started talking to you on her own now and that made you forget Dieter for a bit. The rest of the group was hesitant in their welcome, despite what had almost happened between you, Sam, and Roxie. But they all came around when you gave them the cleanest Molly they’d had in years.

It was like college all over again, but the faces were consistent this time. Five of them. You smoked in their van, fuzzy orange carpet fibers tickling your ear as you looked up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the roof.

“Why are you called The Sixers if there are five of you?” You ask suddenly.

There’s a pause and then a collective chuckle. You watch it like lightning spark between them.

Nick finally speaks up: “Because it sounds like the sex-ers.”

“Sixty-nine n’ feeling fine.”

You laugh with them this time and you feel your breath mix with theirs.

While meeting him wasn’t a particularly momentous occasion, the drive up to his AirBnB was. Maybe it was the lack of air this high up, but around every turn, your chest got a little tighter. The Sixers had shown you The Labyrinth with David Bowie last weekend (“how have you never seen that movie? Did you grow up under a rock?”) and you can’t help but think of the Goblin King coming to whisk you away. At the very least, the amount of rings they wore were the same.

You try desperately to not look at his white-knuckles around the steering wheel and fail tremendously.

The thing is, you don’t really want to fight with him. You don’t want to have to interact with him through this hazy, distant, drugged out wall, but that seems like the only way he’ll talk to you. He’s always scowling at you, like you’d done something wrong, and you hadn’t. Sure, you thought about it and fucked yourself on the biggest dildo you had about it, but you hadn’t actually done anything. You hadn’t even made a move on him, not even bat an eyelash. But it seems like you just breathe in his direction and that sets him off.

You still don’t understand why his past drug problem is now your problem too. In your absence from Hollywood, you’d somehow missed his ups-and-downs as he transitioned out of a teenage heartthrob into a fully adult hot mess. You’d certainly missed his marriage announcement until you googled it in the bathroom after lunch one day to see if what you’d heard the two techs talk about was true.

She’s so fucking hot.

Yeah, she was a model, right? Dude fucking scored big.

Fuck, she was a model. Even if she wasn’t, she certainly looked it, from all the red-carpet photos of the two of them. He looked at her with complete and total adoration.

Hollywood party boy settles down with recent marriage to cubist painter’s daughter

The headline was wordy but got the point across. He was off-limits.

You didn’t know how to make someone like you if you couldn’t offer them sex or drugs. What the fuck were you supposed to do with the sober and married Dieter Bravo?

And yet, there were times. Moments. Fragments. Bursts of light in a mirror, where you thought he looked too long. How his eyes flickered black when you talked about your bra, or your tits, or your ass. But that’s all they were – fleeting instances of your own insanity bleeding into reality. He would never look at you like that. He hated you.

It scared you, the way he expected you to act when you couldn’t hide behind being high, when you couldn’t flirt your way out of a particularly tense situation. He wanted you raw, exposed, your face revealed to the light you had spent years hiding from.

And then he did the darndest thing.

He was nice about it. In the kitchen, and then on the patio, he asked you questions about your start in the industry, what you’d like to do with your life, how you saw your career going. He cooked for you and made you laugh. He invoked the holy saint Sister Heidi as a bargaining chip and it was all the excuse you needed to drop the boxing gloves. You didn’t want to fight with him. You wanted to be his friend. You wanted him to like you.

Scratch that.

You wanted him to fuck you within an inch of your life and, sure, it was stupid to finger-fuck yourself to him, on the same couch as him, but maybe you wanted to get a little caught. Okay, a lot caught because then he’d tell you to fuck off and he’d draw the line in the goddamn sand and, sure, it’d be embarrassing and, sure, it’d hurt like hell but you’d get over it. You’d nurse your heart but you’d get back on that fucking bike because you really, really wanted this movie to work – but –

He fucking doesn’t.

He doesn’t kiss you but he wants to. He looks at you like he wants to suck the marrow from your bones, drink the blood from your heart through your cunt.

Dieter Bravo wants to kiss you desperately, but because he is a good man, he doesn’t. And because you’re a shit person, you make it hard on him. You make it hurt because it hurts you and just for once, for a second, you want someone to understand how you feel. How you hurt. How you ache.

That house in New Mexico changed everything. For you. For him.

Friends didn’t make time with each other because they were trying to plug up the moans in their head. Friends didn’t keep busy to keep their hands off each other. You weren’t friends with him, but you did get along. You learned a lot about him. You’d never had a real friend before but you sure this isn’t how it’s supposed to feel.

Instead of a myth, your relationship is built in handprints. Red blotches on cave walls, their original meaning lost to time, a dead language no one speaks any more. Sometimes the prints overlap, sometimes they don’t. There are no words spoken, but the feeling is there all the same.

You think, if you could just take your aching heart out of your body, you could actually be Dieter Bravo’s friend. He fills in holes you didn’t realize were empty. Chasms for art, for acting, for food that didn’t come in a can or delivered on your front door. He knows about wine, and whiskey, and needs help dressing himself. He never made you feel like your asks were too much, your need to connect too great. He took your hand and told you what you wanted was normal. He’s funny, patient, and loves Shirley MaClaine movies. He did her entire monologue from The Apartment one night after hours of begging and it brought you to tears. You had a scene partner in Dieter Bravo, you had someone to challenge you, to rethink scenes and pull back deeper and deeper character layers. He’d taken a course online about psychology to have a new perspective on analyzing characters and you thought it was fucking genius.

Marie filled certain relationship needs – a girl to talk about drama with, a fellow fan of live music, someone to make you look up to – but Dieter fulfilled more, if not all of them. Despite working in an artistic industry for years, you’d never once talked trade with someone and certainly not someone who knew it so well. You were awestruck by him.

Call it infatuation, call it being horny, but there is a connection, a red through line that connects you both. And for a while, that’s enough.

Until it isn’t.

The mark of his blotchy handprints on your heart stop when you fuck some guy you barely know because Dieter hurt you.

When he won’t look at you while he’s pretending to fuck you, you feel self-conscious again, like he’s going to think you’re some inexperienced little nepo baby. But he does his duty and you do yours and you’ve never felt so empty.

Your handprint stays, while his blurs away.

(Psychologic)

After production ends, you exist in the margins. No more mythologizing. No more cave drawings.

And then Marie shows up.

She takes you to get your nails done like it's the most normal thing in the world. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she know what you are?

You get smoothies and see some live music and she keeps you from spiraling. There is no possible way she knew about the lines of coke upstairs in your bedroom, but she takes you out into the light all the same.

You go out to shows with The Sixers. They love having a groupie who’s a Hollywood star. Marie seems embarrassed when they show-case you, but you find you don’t mind waving a bit on stage and introducing the band. You think you see a pair of deep brown eyes in the crowd occasionally but you know it’s not. You have to accept your fate. He might not like you and he doesn’t hate you, but he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with you.

Not friends, not lovers, but something else. Something almost.

You and the Sixers swim in the ocean off the Santa Barbara coast. You go to parties and you play the bongo drums in a treehouse in South Los Angeles. You bring the good drugs and everyone loves you.

You don’t want to go to the wrap party, but Marie insists. You think she likes being famous just for all the opportunities to get dressed up and do your make up. She told you once that you are the prettiest girl she’d ever seen without any motive behind it. She wasn’t trying to fuck you or fuck with your head. It was just the truth in her eyes and it made you nauseous.

You go to the wrap party because it’s something better to do than get high on shrooms for the fourth time this week and as a reward, Cooper shares his blunt with you in the car. You laugh easily and often and loudly and Cooper keeps you steady with a hand on your waist. You’re nervous, you want to drink more, but you already feel like you’re carrying too many cups and plates and the noise it’s going to make when you drop them all is going to be deafening.

He’s here. He’s here with his fucking gorgeous wife and you stand behind Cooper so you have something blocking your line of sight.

Just as you are about to order your first vodka soda of the night, Dieter rushes back into the house. The weed and coke in you switch the plugs in your brain and suddenly you are very, very angry.

But the Dieter you find is fragile, beaten down, vulnerable. He talks to you like he did in New Mexico and it dulls the edges around the hole in your chest. He looks at you like you’re his saving grace, his last hope.

Myths lie. They blur the truth to make a better story. They build up a man larger than life, they make goddesses out of women, and they sanctify, canonize love. They make you ache with the wanting of the fantasy of it, and that’s on purpose. Myths are the human experience on fire.

Kissing him, you feel on fucking fire.

Meeting him didn’t feel momentous. But fucking him certainly was.

The settlement of your mythology burns to the ground, flames licking the sky. He has crystalized in your veins and, in an instant, you’re hopelessly addicted.

With Dieter Bravo, you come to like sex. You come to love it actually. It’s an itch, a fluttering, warm feeling that makes you twitch and tense when his hands aren’t on you. There’s some part of you that knows the inherent danger of giving one man, much less this man, that much power over you, but fuck, you can’t help it.

You’re too young, too inexperienced in the world to know the difference between when a man wants you for sex and when a man loves you. In your mind, the two are the same and cannot be separated. You know what it feels like to be wanted to be fucked, but in your nativity you assume that’s how a man looks at you when he wants to love you — and this time you’d welcome it.

There isn’t much to say about New Orleans, except for three things:

One, you’ve successfully confused yourself into thinking this is what being in a relationship with him would be like.

Two, you’ve never felt safer and more wanted and more complete than you ever have when you take drugs with Dieter. (that primal animal fear is gone for the first time in what feels like years)

And three, you’re so fucking in love with him you’re sick with it.

In the sickness, you grow weak. You burn with fever. Your bones ache and your mind races. His touch is simultaneously a balm and a contagion.

You love him. You love him. You love him.

You love him unlike anything or anyone.

Marie is actually the only one who ventures a guess. Who catches you, wings pinned to the corkboard, and asks you point-blank, “are you fucking Dieter Bravo?”

Maybe she’s braver because it’s over text, permanent traces of your infidelity, but you stare at her message for hours. You think about it in the hotel shower after the plane lands in Los Angeles. You haven’t seen her in weeks and you’ve stopped returning her phone calls.

Your high falters at the idea that you might have (and probably did) lose a friend over him. But what did that matter, in the grand scheme of things, your sickness asks you, now that you have him?

Now that he’s the only thing that matters. Now that he is everything.

He goes back to his wife.

After everything. After what you did for him. After what you gave up. How you prostrated yourself for his love, for a moment of his time. He can’t see it, it’s eating you up. You think cancer has kinder teeth than his.

The foundations of the core of your being are rocked. It doesn’t feel real because he’s still in this hotel with you, the same hotel where you fucked in the bathroom, where you flirted with him for the cameras to sell the movie, where he begged you to stay with him, you’re gonna stay, right? you’re gonna be with me, after this? And maybe it isn’t real because he only lasts being apart from you for twelve, maybe fourteen hours. Maybe he’s sick too. Maybe he’s fucked just as much as you are.

In your dark, deep wretched heart, you hope he is. You hope he’d die without you. But you don’t know. You don’t know because he never says it.

This time, it’s real, he promises. This time, he’s never going back. This time he’s going to say he loves you, his kisses pledge to you.

This time he’s not going to leave you.

In the mornings after Chloe leaves and you kiss him E-tablets with your tongue and he fucks you in every way he knows how, he curls up next to you and you tell him. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t seem to hear you.

You tell him you love him, have always loved him. Dieter Bravo turned from an imaginary companion, to a friend you didn’t want, and now to a lover who makes you think you’re special. Something valuable, precious. Something that is worth keeping.

Until you’re not.

Myths serve to answer questions about our place in the natural order of things. To ease tension. To provide guidance.

Why does it rain?

Where do the seasons come from?

What is the sun, and why does it leave and return?

What is heartbreak?

What is grief? What is sorrow? How do we carry them with us?

How do we go on when the world is determined to break us?

When you’ve always had nothing, and now you still have nothing and no one – he doesn’t love you and he’s going back to his pregnant wife – you ask, what’s the fucking point?

Not even the myths can answer that one.

Later, when you wake up under the bright lights of a hospital room, your memory is cracked, broken into terracotta pieces on the ground. There are things missing from you.

You don’t remember calling Oliver, only that he was there and he was high out of his mind and he gave you whatever he had in his pockets. You don’t remember what you took, or if Oliver was kind to you when he watched you swallow pill after pill.

You don’t remember the shower, the ambulance ride, or being admitted.

You aren’t sure exactly what you’ve lost. But you feel the missing edges.

Dieter is missing from you.

If you close your eyes, still the movement of your body, block out the noises of the machines and the hospital around you, you think you remember hearing him say it.

You think he might have said it when he kissed your forehead, but it feels older than that. Like his words and his actions stem from two different memories but you’re so fucked up they blur together. You want to hold onto that new memory, as fabricated as it might be, for as long as you can.

But then sleep over takes you again and it flushes everything out. The next time you wake up, you don’t remember that he ever said, I love you.

When you wake up, you know he’s gone. You don’t know how you know, or why, but it feels like a piece of you has been torn away in a bloody chunk. Like someone had taken pliers to your fingernails and tore them off until blood splattered onto the floor.

Like someone put a knee to your shoulder and wrenched white teeth out of your mouth.

Until you are gummy and dripping.

You open your eyes not to Dieter, not Heidi, but Marie. Mousy, intelligent, thoughtful Marie curled up asleep in the chair next to you.

The sound of your crying wakes her up. Wordless, judgement-less, she crawls into bed with you, takes you into her arms, and lets you sob like the heart-broken mess you’ve become.

God, can you die from pain like this?

She strokes your forehead and tells you, no, you can’t. You might want to, but you can’t.

For the first time in your life, you’re not a myth.

You’re not a story of a little girl whose parents didn’t love her enough.

You are not the story of an actress whose star burned too bright and hot and the cosmos punished her for her hubris.

You’re not the story of a woman who fell in love too hard and too fast with drugs and a man much older than her and got shattered on the rocks.

The book has closed, the final chapter has come. There are no more stories to tell, nothing left to make fantastic.

You are a broken human body.

Natalie Lorraine is a myth.

You were a child once. You have to remember that.

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo x reader #the bubble fanfic #the bubble fic #the bubble fanfiction #the bubble 2016 #dieter bravo/f!reader #dieter bravo/you #dieter bravo/reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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nepobabyeurydice · 7 months

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Where Do Hazel’s Flashbacks Come From?

An unsolved mystery since the start of the Son of Neptune, very few clues or hints are given on the origins of Hazel’s flashbacks that have plagued her since her resurrection from Asphodel. So today I’ve decided to say fuck it and begin writing meta about this. Without further ado let me present the 5 most likely theories as to the origins of these flashbacks.

Theory One: The Lethe

The Lethe is described as a black river in the Underworld potent enough to remove the memories of a Titan with only a dip. But, said Titan regains his memories through triggers…like Hazel does.

However, that doesn’t make up for the slow process over 9 months of Hazel regaining memories instead of the two weeks or so of Bob regaining his. Hazel arguably has less memories to keep trapped and shuttered inside unlike Bob’s literal millenniums worth of memories flooding in as soon as he meets someone from his past.

So while likely, Rick also never says Hazel took a sip of the Lethe, just remained under that poplar tree for eighty years.

Theory 2: It’s Nico’s Fault

He probably did it by accident though.

Bringing back the dead isn’t an exact science or art so it could’ve been the way Hazel was brought back. Through an illegal escape of the Underworld while Death was chained instead of a Hades approved resurrection or Asclepius doing it.

The journey upwards could’ve had a keyed-in self-destruct that usually leads spirits to return to the Underworld out of despair of reliving old memories. Or just that the way Hazel was brought back was genuinely wrong and created some damage but also greatly increased her powers and connection to the Underworld instead of just gems and it just showed up after she confronted her past in MoA and reached being able to shadow-travel in HoH.

But most of the evidence is circumstantial and Medea, Minos, and Litysteres have shown no adverse side-effects to coming back from the dead as of yet. (Rick I’d kill for a Hazel and Frank novel, c’mon give me the Frazel novel)

Theory 3: It’s Sammy’s Diamond

This one is a little more out there but look I could be right.

Hazel’s fatal flaw is the past, Sammy’s Diamond is literally the fucking up of her past even more than even meeting Leo ever was. I say that because Sammy so badly wanted to know what happened to Hazel after she left to Alaska he imbued that gem before selling it with his memories.

Because the gem didn’t hurt Sammy. It helped him get married, have three to four children and two to six grandchildren along with more than a few great-grandchildren.

He lived a long time, almost suspiciously long for someone who was already 14 when WWII happened. He’d be 17 by the time it was over and be in his 80’s by the time Leo was born and died by the time Leo was 5-ish. And he had not a single sign of dementia or Alzenhimer’s.

Granted that’s not completely odd but the fact that the diamond is still circulating with the unanswered questions Sammy imbued it with might be why Hazel’s flashbacks occurred and didn’t settle until she met someone with Sammy’s blood. (Be funny if she met Tia Rosa with Nico while going to CJ and she just stops having flashbacks and they’re both like okay I guess that happened.)

Theory 4: It’s Gaea’s Fault

And she definitely did it on purpose.

When Hazel brought down Resurrection Bay at 13 by the way, get it girl, she effectively dragged down Gaea with her keeping Gaea from rising to full power in the 1920’s

So two options here. Curse or a piece of Hazel’s ghost is trapped in Resurrection Bay and kept Gaea under as long as she could but she faded away as the years went on.

I don’t completely buy option 2 but still, fun angst.

I can however see Gaea being a petty bitch and cursing Hazel to relive the agony of her life once she returns because she likes tormenting Hazel and I think Hazel and Leo should’ve been the ones to beat her ass in because they’re the ones directly traumatized by her since they were young.

Also, she can manipulate dreams and shit so there’s evidence there.

Theory 5: Bianca Did It

Do you ever notice that like, whenever anything related to prophetic or past dreams happen it’s either Bianca’s fault or ‘demigod dreams’ in PJO?

Like for the entirety of Battle of the Labyrinth Bianca did nothing but intervene for Percy and Nico trying to get both of them the fuck out of there.

It’s not wrong to think she’d do the same thing for her sister. As I mentioned before, Hazel’s fatal flaw is the past, Bianca is clearly aware of the fatal flaw of the children of Hades which doesn’t make it too far of a leap to assume she doesn’t know the fatal flaws of the children of Pluto. So the flashback could be an attempt by Bianca to keep Hazel from falling down the deep dark pit of despair and eventual re-death.

Of course we know Bianca’s been reborn but…has she?

She showed in Nico’s nekiya for Maria di Angelo warning him against it despite supposedly being reborn. There’s every chance she’s just sort of hanging around there to help whichever idiot sibling/cousin is planning on following her to the Underworld.

Would not surprise me if it turns out to be a plot twist in a future Frazel novel if Rick can understand that I would literally write it myself if it wasn’t copyrighted.

In conclusion, Hazel’s flashbacks are dealer’s choice and will likely remain unanswered but at least we’ve zeroed in on the suspects and possible interference from everyone else and hopefully I’ve given you something to think about.

Thank you very much for reading and let's all have a little prayer circle for a Frazel novel because if you can reopen a finished series Rick you can absolutely write a Frazel-novel like you did for Solangelo.

#heroes of olympus #hazel levesque #nico di angelo #meta

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babyrdie · 3 months

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Medea and Jason

I'm a little obsessed with them!

Honestly, I think Medea xJason dynamic in Argonautica is funny! (impractical for my life that they don't have a ship name)

Like, all the descriptions of Medea's feelings were simply EUPHORIC, it was a level of description of this woman's desire that I had never seen in any Greek mythological character before. She doesn't even do anything THAT strange in Argonatica, definitely nothing like Medea from Euripides' play, but you can still feel that she's OBSESSED and that the arrow of Eros was SUPER efficient. I think Apollonius' Medea has a more harmless kind of obsession compared to other versions of her, she just adores Jason too much.

Meanwhile, Jason himself seems much less invested than her, but still interested. He also gave me the impression of someone willing when it comes to pretty girls. I mean, the dude was stuck on Lemnos for days fucking with Hypsipyle and Heracles even makes fun of it when he goes to scold Jason. Hypsipyle was nice to Jason, but I bet he'd still consider her even if he'd stuck a spear in his face after the Lemnian armed themselves. After all, there are versions in which what Medea did to Absyrtus was MUCH worse than Apollonius' version and, even so, in these versions Jason is willing to stay with her. He saw Medea, a beautiful princess offering him all the ways to the success of the mission, and thought: why not?

So yes, I bet that their version in Argonautica is a couple that when it comes to kissing, Jason is all excited, closing his eyes and waiting for a French kiss and meanwhile Medea is staring at his face passionately (in a somewhat obsessed way). Certainly, on the night they consummated their marriage on Phaeacian Island, I think that Jason slept like a baby and Medea stayed up most of the night watching him sleep in a somewhat disconcerting way.

Medea's obsession for Jason is so complicated because, in Argonautica, we see that it never harms Jason and only brings him benefits. Euripides also shows how she goes so far with the whole Pelias daughters thing to benefit Jason, who at the time was apparently okay with it. But Euripides also shows us that such a great obsession has the potential to ruin Jason from the moment he takes the wrong path. The wrong path isn't even that he's immoral or something, it's that he doesn't consider her the way Medea considers him.

So yeah, he tried to marry someone else and that's it, Medea showed her madness. He could be the worst man in the world and she would probably still love him as long as he was hers, what she can't stand is feeling like he's not hers as much as she feels like she's his. She cares so much more about him than anyone else. Even when she hates him deeply, Jason is still the one who matters most. She goes so far that any love she has for her children doesn't compare to the hatred she has for Jason. Even though she regrets what she is about to do, she never changes her mind. Medea is a perfect example of love and hate being two sides of the same coin, of how obsession has two forms.

They're certainly a dysfunctional couple on both sides (more on her, for sure), but I feel like that's part of what makes them interesting. On one occasion in Argonautica, Jason even tells the story of Ariadne and Theseus to Medea, meaning that she would be his Ariadne: the princess who goes against her father's wishes to help the traveler hero on his mission and, as a reward, returns home with him. The link in Ariadne's story is reinforced by the fact that Jason had even previously received a cloak from Hypsipyle where Ariadne and Dionysus generated Thoas (father of Hypsipyle, who also owned the cloak). Another link is Medea's own family, who, as she is the granddaughter of Helios on her father's side, is also the niece of Pasiphae, Ariadne's mother. Interestingly, Jason does not mention the part of the story where Theseus abandons Ariadne on Naxos. Personally, I consider this a clue as to how Medea and Jason also did not end up as a happy couple.

They're a fun couple, that is it! In the case of Argonautica, it's even more interesting because Apollonius makes Jason not a typical hero. Not only is Medea not typical (in any version of her), Jason is too (depending on the version). This makes them a kind of atypical couple.

There are many interpretations regarding Jason's actions in Argonautica:

Some consider him a coward, as he several times expresses hesitation in an atypical way in heroic epics of Ancient Greece.

Some consider him an example of a young man beginning to mature, as is notable for being much less useful in the first two books compared to the last two. But some consider that Jason's "passivity" is because he didn't want to go on the trip, he was just ordered to. This is made even more evident by the way he cries as he distances himself from Iolcos. In Argonautica's version, he doesn't even plan to get the throne back (like in other versions), he just wants a chance to live in Iolcos. Also, in this idea, Heracles is seen as out of place among the Argonauts precisely because he has already achieved a lot and isn't at the same level as the others.

Some consider him the ideal leader precisely because he prefers to resolve problems without physical conflict and because he tends to ask and consider the opinion of his crew members rather than taking all the leadership and being violent, thus being a diplomatic type of hero and Heracles being abandoned in the middle of the route would mean that the path of violence and a lot of attitude would be abandoned in Argonautica as well.

Some consider him a "lover hero", being the type who achieves things through charming others rather than through direct conflicts. Shown in his involvement with Hypsipyle and, mainly, with Medea. But also because of the way he deals with his crew, never trying to win them over with anything other than his personality. The fact that Aphrodite and Eros are essential figures for his success in Argonautica and Aphrodite is also mentioned as important in Euripides' play are also used as an example of this interpretation. His beauty is also greatly enhanced, on more than one occasion related to its effect on women.

For Jason, I kind of mixed these interpretations. I wanted to emphasize that he is young, so no beard (but when he's older like Euripides play, he'll have a beard). I wanted to give the "lover hero" idea a chance and I was also inspired by the comparisons made between Jason and Apollo, and that formed the rest of the design.

As for Medea, the golden eyes because in Argonautica it is mentioned that Circe recognizes her as a relative via Helios because Helios' descendants have a specific type of eye. She is mentioned as blonde in Argonautica and I don't remember Euripides giving us a hair color, but I went with brown because I always imagined her as brunette and also in my opinion it matches better with the rest of her palette. She's tall, taller than Jason, to highlight her divine heritage as it is a very prominent part of her character.

#ik #digital art #greek mythology #tagamemnon #medea #jason #jason x medea #medea x jason #artists on tumblr #argonautica #argonauts #jason and the argonauts

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fanaticastrid · 8 months

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Double Lester AU: Dialouge tests and skits

For your reading pleasure. On with the chaos!

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

Lester: Oh my god, would you calm down?! It's perfectly normal to have acne! You are OVERREACTING!

Apollo: "Perfectly normal?" "Overreacting?!" Why don't you take a look at yourself too, huh?!

Lester: Maybe I will! (He walks up to the glass to see his reflection... which is nothing like he expects. He looks completely different and so... dead.)

(Lester screams very loudly and jumps back in fright, only avoiding getting run over by a pickup from Apollo and Meg quickly yanking him back to the sidewalk.)

(Poor guy has no idea what's in store for him.)

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

Medea: Lester, I can help you if you'd let me! I'll help you take your life back from what the Olympians have done to you!

Lester: Sure. (He reverts to his aoroi self) But I think I'll take yours first.

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

Apollo: Stop being agreeable and let me hate you!

Lester: nah

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

Lester: Tell me you're joking. It's not THE Nero behind all this, right...?

Apollo: I wish I was joking, but unfortunately no, it's Nero.

(Lester questions his life choices as he runs after Apollo)

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

Apollo: Lester, stop being a bad influence on Meg.

Lester: Stop being gay then.

Apollo: I hate you.

Lester: No you don't, I feel the love you have for me

Meg: Guys I'm right here...

Apollo: Lester stop being gay.

Lester: Fuck you.

(They have so many exchanges like this it's so funny, I love my dorks)

#trials of apollo #toa #lester papadopoulos #alternate universe #fan au #double lester au #lesterverse #meg mccaffrey #apollo

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fiannalover · 1 year

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SaberDiarmuid's deal is so funny because, he's not the only alt or mind share deal with a good relationship with himself, but you go to Jekyll and we all know how That is going, Hundred Faces is likely better now than irl but they still absolutely Went Through It with their personality disorder, then you look at alts and we have Castoria holding back vomit from thinking too hard about The Inherent Tragedy Of Saber, Gilgamesh and Medea being embarrassed at their younger selves and even Cu is like "yeaaaaa talking with myself is kinda awkward".

Then you enter SaberDiarmuid's mental space and LancerDiarmuid is softly giving him a head massage while whispering sweet words of affirmation, and then you jump out of that POV and Shiki Ryougi is there next to Diarmuid like "it feels good doesn't it?" "Yeah..."

#fate #fate grand order #diarmuid ua duibhne

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ultramarine-spirit · 1 year

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What you said in your previous post about manhwas reflecting the thinking of Korean autoreas is so true!! it's frustrating because people analyze it with their western mentality and throw so much hate without bothering to try to understand the story. There are many things that I have noticed in the manhwa that are very different from things in the west (for example, the FL is always compared to an angel or a fairy lol) but something that caught my attention is that in the west it is It is very common that when we talk about an 'empowered woman' it is a woman who is good at physical fights, with super powers or good at using weapons with sarcastic personalitys and other things, while in manhwas (there are women like that too, of course) but something they have that the americans movies don't usually show is that the women here are very good at studying. That surprised me (and I liked it) because it is not very common to see women who work hard in the studios and enjoy it in USA movies, but they do in manhwas. One of the few movies that reflects this is legally blonde (and it's one of the best movies out there) plus I have a great love for academically validated female characters, they are literally my favorites in any story so reading that Athy really enjoyed studying made me fall more in love with her. Also when FLs have to act cute in order to survive, fans often throw so much hate at them saying they are irritating or ridiculous but they don't take the time to think that there are many ways to be a great female character without always using weapons, I have a great hatred for the term "soft fl" it seems too misogynistic to me that they are thrown down for that reason but waiting for the manhwa community to realize that is going to take a long time.

Another thing I remember is that in the novel Athy had many modern thoughts that surprised me, like when they talked a little about Korean society and I could feel a criticism of this or the things she said when some men harassed her and Jennette or when some men Men said that she would be happier married to a prince instead of being the next empress and she was very upset by her. Also when in his debut he said "one thing I learned is that boys have to look like boys and ladies look like ladies" (this stuck with me because it made me think of oversexualizing young children but maybe I'm overanalyzing it) There are many interesting things in the wmmap novel that people take out of context.

Another thing I've noticed is that in the East it's more typical to see this kind of "sunshine" girls who are sweet and cheerful, very kind, literally the kind of people that everyone loves and in manhwas they get so much hate, it's hateful. It's also not common to see this type of girls in the west and if they are, they are always hated. Ruby from How to get my husband on my side is truly one of the strongest female characters out there and is always looked down on just because she is softer compared to the other girlboss leads. Athanasia is a character who seems to be on the lookout for between these two terms but he still gets criticized for not having acted in a more "evil" way it's funny because the scene of Athy facing the nobles and then Anastascius screamed more power to me than many scenes I've seen in movies or series.

I just want to clarify that I love my villainous girls, medea and roxana are really amazing and I enjoyed women who do morally bad things, marianne, Cosette, soleia, I love them all. But I genuinely hate how they look down on 'soft fl'

The thing is, there are a lot of things in the novels/manhwas that I feel are critical or stereotypical of them that more western minded people take too much out of context and it's too frustrating, some people have a hard time understanding which does not have to be from their point of view.

sorry for all the rant lmao, i didn't mean to make it so long, it's just that this is one of my big problems with the manhwa community 😭

Have a good day!

Don't worry for the rant, anon! I think similarly to you as well.

I'm in the position that, while I live in a country that geographically and politically could be considered "the west" (what a long conversation that is lmfao), my culture doesn't perfectly align with "western" values and ideas. So when I see people sending hate towards manhwa, I notice how they often analyze them exclusively from their personal point of view and own biases, not realizing that asian media is very different from western media. I don't know if this is a problem of media literacy or it's that people think less of asian media as a whole. Hopefully it's the former.

But yes, most manhwas reflect korean values! Shocking, I know. Perhaps people get blinded by the western settings, but even if the characters "don't look" asian, they were made by an asian author, so obviously they reflect asian ideas and values. In that sense, they are asian characters. A similar discourse happens with anime and danmei/xianxia novels.

I think western readers have an easier time liking "girlboss" FLs and revenge fantasy stories because those are more common on this side of the world. But they struggle with more nuanced stories where the FL is not perfect, she does not solve everything with schemes or being a badass, is "weak", or (heaven forbid!) is able to forgive a family that hurt her in the past. This is the main criticism Athy gets, the fact that she was able to love Claude. I truly don't understand how people decide to even read WMMAP if they are so opposed to that idea, because that's the heart of WMMAP's story. Family holds a much bigger importance on the east compared to the west's individualistic idiosyncrasy, so of course most asian stories that touch the topic of family won't end in "if your family wronged you, fuck them". From where I'm from, family is also regarded as very important, so I can understand why a lot of manhwas are about rebuilding family relationships, not destroying them. And even then, you have plenty of revenge fantasies with cartoonishly evil families, so if that's what you prefer, you can read those.

Specifically korean media, it often touches topics like, generational trauma, misogyny, capitalism, etc. As you said, WMMAP addresses these things too in some way or another. I didn't think manhwa was particularly subtle as a medium (I know it's kinda ironic coming from me, but these are very simple stories, not Dostoevsky novels), but if people have trouble understanding the point of Parasite and Squid Game, then no wonder they can't pick up on these themes.

I'm not saying asian media or manhwas are above negative criticism. They have plenty of issues of their own. But if you are going to criticize something, you have to truly understand it, and reading anything disregarding cultural context or the own internal biases you may hold is at best foolish and at worst very ignorant. Western readers often have this mentality that all stories have to cater to them, when it's obvious that manhwas were made thinking of a korean public first and foremost.

(I dislike when people say Athy should have been more "evil". The whole point of her character is how her kindness and willingness to be empathetic with others and try to build honest relationships was what saved everyone. Villainesses AUs are fun, but when people truly say that Athy's character is weak because she chooses to feel love instead of hatred, because she is selfless instead of selfish- Why are you even reading WMMAP? And even then, she is far from "soft" and has plenty of "badass moments"...)

(News to me that Ruby gets hate, I thought she was the new manhwa darling. I stopped reading that series, but to me she was the best part of it by far. I think she is one of the only few good portrayals of a victim of physical abuse and ED in all manhwa. I have always disliked how those traits are just brushed aside as little things to endear the FL to the reader, but are never treated with the seriousness they deserve).

#personally im not a fan of 'super badass FLs that solve everything by just being girlbosses' cuz i feel like the author is trying to pander #to readers that like to self insert or live their fantasies through the FL. and its cool if thats your thing but its not mine #another extremely funny thing is how people lose their shit at pseudo incest manhwa (aka adopted siblings not raised together fall in love)#(and to be clear. i also dont like the trope but that's not my point) when-#pseudo incest and straight up incest are part of the western literary canon. a VERY prominent part if i might add #my point is that you may dislike the trope. that's fair. but often those criticisms read as 'eww this gross korean manhwa is so disgusting'#which... idk guys you might wanna think a little about how you interact with foreign media and how your biases might be affected by racism #just food for thought #anyways that's why i dont care about 'manhwa fandom'. i just wanna talk about wmmap with wmmap fans #wmmap #wmmap meta

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tomboyjessie13 · 1 day

Text

Third Floor Bedroom, DIO's Mansion Early morning, June

Medea: Zzzzzzzz.......Mmmm...*Starts to stir in her sleep, she slowly opens her eyes to find that the candles are no longer lit, but the light from the windows is barely showing, allowing her to see herself laying on a pillow and under its covers, and no clothes on.* ..........Hm? *She looks up and sees that she's in DIO's arms with her head pressed up against his ice-cold chest, pulling her into a big spoon position.*

DIO: *In deep sleep* Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Medea: ...... *Closed her eyes again and nuzzled up against his chest again, wanting to bury herself in his embrace forever.* Mmm~..............!!!!!!!! *Suddenly jolted herself awake and looked up at DIO again, that feeling of ecstasy and joy has quickly turned into dread when she finally came back to her senses.*

DIO: Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Medea: *In her mind, filled with total dread* Oh my god.... OH MY GOD! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I LOST MY VIRGINITY TOO SOON! AND TO MY OWN BOSS! I'M GOING TO HELL FOR THIS! HOW AM I GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS TO MY PARENTS!? SCRATCH THAT! HOW AM I GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS TO THE OTHER AGENTS!? VANILLA ICE WILL KILL ME IF HE FINDS OUT!

[Flogging Molly]: *Telepathically* Kiru, kiru, kiru...

Medea: *Snaps out of it and turns to see her Stand standing there*.......... *Telepathically* [Flogging Molly], get me out of here, but don't wake up DIO."

[Flogging Molly]: *Nodding, they gently pull Medea out of his arms without waking him up*

Medea: *Gets out of bed and staggers about trying to stand up straight* ......Mmm... *Her body was sore with tiny bruises, there was a stinging sensation on her neck, her legs are weak, and felt cold from the air*

[Flogging Molly]: *Picks up Medea's clothes and threw her gown over her shoulders and gave her pants*

Medea: *Puts her pants on* Thanks...Hm? *Looks back on the bed and sees that there's signs of last night's activities on the sheets, causing her face to turn pale.* ....Oh god...We need to hide the evidence.

[Flogging Molly]: *Discreetly took the sheets from the bed and gives it to Medea, thankfully for them it's not stuck on DIO's body and covers, then goes to grab her shoes and scarf*

Medea: Good job, now let's get out of here.

[Flogging Molly]: Kiru...kiru, kiru...

Medea: Forget about the bracelets, I'll deal with it later. *Stumbles about ready to leave the room* Besides DIO wears the same bracelets so the others would think they're his. *Barely touches the lock on the door.*

*TIME STOP*

DIO: *Has suddenly awoken and hugged her from behind, he was large, cold, and bare*

Medea: !?!?!?!? *Panicking in her mind* What th- when was he awake!?

DIO: *Groaning tiredly into her shoulder* ...Mmmm~ *Leaning into her ear and whispered:* Good morning, my dear.

Medea: *Out loud sheepishly* .......Uhhh, morning, Master?

[Flogging Molly]: *Defensive, gripping onto Medea's arm* Kiruuuuuuuu...

DIO: *Smirks at them* Good morning to you to. *He tilts his head and sees the sheets in her arms.* ....What are you doing with my sheets? It's too early to do laundry.

Medea: *Stutters* I-I know, but after what happened last night, I thought I get a head start.

DIO: .....*He then sees what's on the sheets and smirks against her ear* Hooh, you're not trying to hide that you're not a virgin anymore, are you?

Medea: *Her face turned even more pale*........ *She broke free from his grip and stood firmly in front of him* Lord DIO...this *motioning her finger back and forth at him and herself* ...What happened last night...let's keep it between us.

DIO: Hyuu?....Oh that's right, *he brushes his forefinger against his chin* we talked about that last night. *Shrugs* Very well, but if Vanilla Ice asks, I'm not gonna lie about it.

Medea: *Freaking out* DIO!

DIO: *Raising his hands* I'm kidding!

Medea: That's not funny, the last thing I want is to lose my life to a jealous Stand user who wants a piece of you.

DIO: Trust me, I would never let that happen.

Medea: I hope so... *Turns around to unlock the door* I'm going to clean up and slee-*DIO grabs her shoulders* AH! *He kisses her deeply* MMMFPH! *Forced to stand on her tippy toes* "Mmmm! Mmahh~

DIO: *Gripping her shoulders tightly* Mmmm~

[Flogging Molly]: *Baffled, then angered* Kiruuuuuuuu...

DIO: *Breaks kiss* Fuah~ *Cups her face with his left hand, chuckles* Fu fu fu, still as sweet as honey~

Medea: *Shocked, winded, and blushing from what just happened*......Th-thank you, my Lord.

[Flogging Molly]: *Pulls their user away, glaring at him* Kiru kiru kiru.

Medea: *Fails to grab the door knob a few times* I'm uhh, gotta clean up and sleep now, pleasant dreams, my Lord. *Finally grabbing it and quickly leaves the room*

DIO: *Waves bye to her as he watches her leave with an evil smirk on his face* ........ Now you belong to me, Medea. *Licks his lips*

- The aftermath of Medea's and DIO's first affair, marking the beginning of their unhealthy relationship

(This was actually from a NSF_W fanfic I've privately written but never posted)

#jojo's bizarre adventure #dio brando #jojo oc #stand oc #oc #ocs #canon x oc #drabble #nsft ish

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princekirijo · 10 months

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Thoughts on the P3 casts personas? i.e which do you prefer between the initial and secondary personas and which are your favourites?

Oh god thank Rui ily for this

Ok so I'll keep this one fairly opinion based (because someone else asked me a very similar question and I thought fuck it I'll rant about them twice because Personas and their designs are my fav thing to talk about) so without further ado:

So in general I absolutely adore the Persona 3 cast's Personas. Design wise they're not as flashy as P5's but I feel like they don't need to be because their more muted color palette and simpler designs fit the tone of P3 well. There are some I love to pieces (Penthesilea, Artemisia, Caesar, Castor and Cerberus come to mind) and then there are some that I don't like that much (Polydeuces and Nemesis). I'll put a more detailed breakdown undercut because I know I'll get carried away lmao but those are my general thoughts!

I'll break them down by character so it's easier!

MC/FeMC: OK so I do have a preference for male Orpheus but I honestly like both! Female Orpheus has a more cheery color palette (well brighter is prob the better word) which I like a lil more but I think the original one is just iconic. I love his harp and how he uses it to bash enemies idk why that's so funny to me it just is. Thanatos is probably one of my favorite designs ever I love that guy so much. I love his mask and I love how beast like he is. And the coffins? Absolute banger design. Messiah is overall a good design but I'm not as fond of it? It's very well executed but I think because it's so late in the game and it's just not as iconic as the other two I'm kinda meh about it you know. Thanatos is my fav for the MCs (and if he doesn't count for whatever reason then Orpheus).

Junpei: I don't have too much to say about Hermes design wise other than I like him! I like his bird look and tbh my fav thing about him is actually his attack animations! The way he slides into enemies is really satisfying to me idk why. Trismegistus though. God I love him so much. Mostly because of his awakening scene that is honestly one of the highlights of the game (like a lot of the second tier awakenings) and the fact his design is a fusion of Hermes and Medea is just so so good. I def prefer him.

Yukari: I really enjoy both Io and Isis a lot. I really like their designs and their lore and how it ties into Yukari's own story! However compared to some of the others, these designs kinda fall in the middle of the pack for me. Solid looks but nothing crazy you know? I think I slightly prefer Isis because of her wings I think that's such a cool design feature.

Akihiko: Ah my boy. He has one of the best and the worst persona designs of the cast for me. Polydeuces is such a dope choice for him as a Persona. Picking the immortal half of the Gemini twins for him and giving Shinji the other one is so so so so good and I could rant all day about why I love the concept. The design? Ugly af I'm sorry 😭 I cannot stand it it looks so weird the big bulky body with the skinny little legs looks so off-putting and his hair is just so weird? I don't like it at all 💀 Caesar however???!! Absolutely ADORE him. Such a powerful looking design and I love the lil person who sits in his chest (I'm one of the "it represents Shinji" people because I just love that idea so much). Caesar def is my preference here.

Fuuka: I really love Fuuka's Personas because of how she interacts with them. I really like how she's encased inside the persona and I think both Lucia and Juno look really really good. Unfortunately they're kinda similar to Yukari's for me in that they're like both very good but just don't stand out as much as some of the others. I prefer Lucia for her lore and I prefer Juno's design so 🤷‍♂️

Mitsuru: Oh baby. I absolutely adore Penthesilea and Artemisia to DEATH. I have written essays on here about the details of their designs and how they fit Mitsuru as a character so so well. Probably two of my favorites in the entire series. If I had to pick I think I'd give the slight edge to Artemisia because the fact that she has that red mask symbolizing the fact Mitsuru is finally coming out of her shell and letting down her walls a little makes me so so emotional.

Koromaru: Cerberus is a very very good boy. I think it's a really on the nose design but there's nothing wrong with that he's perfect. 10/10 would pet and give treats.

Ken: I think Ken's personas have the same deal as Akihiko's for me but to a lesser degree. I don't like Nemisis that much. I don't hate it as much as I hate Polydeuces, I just think it looks really awkward. I could see what they were going for and the blade saw thing is cool it just looks... Kinda weird. Idk. Kala-nemi on the other hand I much prefer! I think it does the over exaggerated proportions much better than Polydeuces (it's big bulky shoulders look and move really well) and I like the lore behind it. It's not a massive favorite but I enjoy it.

Aigis: Honestly I like both Palladion and Athena a lot. They're both really solid designs and they fit Aigis super well! I'd have to give the edge to Athena though because I love the big shields that circle her. Really cool touch.

Shinjiro: Oh god Castor. I adore Castor so so much. Such a fantastic design. The horse the blade in the chest just everything about him. He looks like Polydeuces but just so so much better. Brilliant design def one of my favs in the series.

#asks #wildcard-rumi #persona 3 #fuck it main tag #good lord i went crazy #and im about to go crazy with the next ask too LMAOOOO #literally never ask me about persona designs i will not shut up #but yeah i love sees persona so much #they might not be as cool overall as the thieves personas but god damn do they hit hard #i dont mean to shit on polydeuces so much LMAOO i just really think its ugly 😭#can y'all tell which ones are my favs LMAOOO #im also attached to mitsuru's personas just because ive spent a lot of time studying them for reasons ehehe #but yeah thank you for the ask rui!! bet you weren't expecting this long an answer LMAOOO #i really hope i didnt forget anyone that would be embarrassing af #also before anyone says anything i left out metis deliberately I'll get to her in a minute

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queenofnohr · 2 months

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Odeline Heaven's Ward Relationship Overview

Zephirin

Sympathetic to her plight, but ultimately has a job to do (pre-ARR)

Encourages the Ward to interact with her throughout the events of HW

Charibert

Wants to persecute her as a heretic sooooooooooooooo badly

(pre-ARR) If she smells Charibert coming, she'll veil herself back up bc she does NOT want to deal with him

(after revival) bites each other bites each other bites each other

Technically her savior

Though because he was the one who persecuted her "family," he was the one she had to fight in trial by combat (real rin vs medea hours; aka she wins not bc of her magic but by mana burst punching him in the gut)

literally "the one that got away" for him. his white whale. LOVES fighting her

Grinnaux

"look at this funny bitch"

Leans slightly neutral toward her, but thinks she's entertaining

Adelphel

Knew her as the weirdo who indulges Jannequinard during his tenure as a Durendaire knight

Wanted/wants (?) to fuck her ngl. He's 22. big shrug.

Gets along fairly well with her even though she rejects his advances

Thinks she's naïve despite being younger than her for thinking ppl don't break their vows of chastity constantly in ishgard

Even tempered, thought things would work out until the very end because they were friends :(

Paulecrain

Eyepatch to eyepatch communication

by that I mean he recognizes her as (somewhat) cut from the same cloth as people who'd struggled to get by in Ishgard

Gains some amount of respect for her after she bests Charibert in her trial by combat

While it isn't really surprising to him that an Au Ra would thrive outside of Ishgard, seeing her when she returns, he wonders how high she plans to climb wrt status

Slightly bitter at her position as House Fortemps ward in HW, especially after learning she's a Problem Child now

On her part, she wants to see him succeed because she does consider him a person (as with the rest of the Ward) and is frustrated to see him content with his lot as it is - when asked "Doesn't [he] want more?" he half-bitterly replies with, "Where else is there to go when you've made it into the Ward?"

Is so fucking confused as to why she rubbed elbows with Jannequinard for clout and she's just like. "He was the only one stupid enough to take me"

post revival, he probably grounds her a lot of the time like "even if you're warrior of light, you're still just a person"

Haumeric

Was On Her Side during her scandal and sent her to complete her schooling afterward; despite this, because of her past trauma, she distrusts his acts of goodliness

Her scandal is what made him seriously consider stepping down from the clergy

(post revival) "I can fix her" "I can make him worse"

Thinks she's a good Halone-fearing woman and thinks her "fall from grace" is a tragedy

unintentionally bullies Odeline after reviving over stuff like pointing out she cried over the Ward or unintentionally making her beg for cock

likes sticking his dick in crazy so, you kno.

Last Ward member she fucks

Guerrique

Likes to fuck with him

before she likes to fuck with him u kno? (post-Ward reviving)

He broke her arm on accident once and feels really bad about it so he sort of lets her behavior slide

Figures out her vibes faster than anyone else but doesn't comment because it's not his lane

First Ward member Odeline fucks bc she thinks he'll be an easy conquest. why would she think this. he's literally exploded a dragon's head with a swing and broken 22 of his axes because of his strength. the reason is she's a little stupid and has a god complex.

Guerrique asks if he should name a new axe after her after they fuck and she's just like .........

Noudenet

Classmates in the Scholasticate

Would bitch about her magic constantly, making her strive to get better

Thinks her mana bursting is big poggers though ("It was very imaginative")

Tells her to study with Charibert rather than Haumeric when she's learning magic from the Ward mages

Janlenoux

BLUE HAIR SQUAD

The only one who can make her calm down maybe a little (with his cooking. Real What's Cooking in the Emiya Household hours)

Technically knew her as the weirdo who indulges Jannequinard when he served House Durendaire

Ward members not listed I'm still cooking for! To be updated as I add more lore~

#odeline tag #long post

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speckledfiction · 10 months

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As Certain Dark Things

Psyche x Medea, 18+ fic

A short scene set after the ball in chapter 147. Mostly written out of spite about a plot development in recent fast pass chapters

Psyche used to only love beautiful things. Roses in full bloom. Stars in a clear sky. Baby deer taking their first shaky steps on delicate spindle legs. But lately, she has found herself loving the dark. Loving spiders, even as they wind deadly threads around helpless and struggling flies. Loving serpents as they open their jaws to swallow mice. Loving the abbysal depths of the sea, where no light ever reaches.

The night Eros announces the end of their engagement, Psyche and Medea swap bodies. Not for long, just for a few brief hours between the end of the party and the first glimmer of dawn. Lying in Medea's cold bed, in her colder room, Psyche feels Medea's body thrumming with endorphins, a heady cocktail of joy that speeds her heart to a dancing rhythm and thrills the nerves in her arms and legs. This is how Medea felt, Psyche knows, when she heard about the annulment. They cannot talk, say the countless things that must be on their minds. So they exchange something more base, pure chemical feeling. As Psyche lies here, her soul bound to Medea's limbs, Medea is lying far away in Psyche's bed, her senses saturated Psyche's endocrine system. Her brain awash with delight and relief and freedom.

"You should take better care of yourself, my darling," Psyche whispers aloud, and hears the words in Medea's rich timbre. She has a lovely alto voice. She would make an incredible church soloist, in another world. That's a funny thought, and so Psyche laughs Medea's thrilling laugh. Then she draws together her power, and heals the little stresses and tensions that linger in Medea's body. She can't fix everything - certainly not Medea's chronic lack of sleep - but she does what she can.

As the tension drains from Medea's body, Psyche catches a lingering trace of another feeling, the dregs of something unfulfilled. Desire, hot and heavy, coils in Medea's abdomen. It's such a hungry feeling, even tamed. It would knock Psyche to her knees if she wasn't already lying down. And this is just the afterimage, not the full potency that Medea must have felt some hours ago. But when, where, why? Who was at the party to inspire this lust? Not Helio, surely, since as far as Psyche knows, he didn't attend. And anyway, thinking of him seems to immediately diminish this feeling, wherever it came from. Psyche doubtingly thinks the name Eros, but the flash of his face in her memory is like a bucket of cold water. Relieved, Psyche pushes the thought of him away. Was it victory then? Maybe the triumph of the broken engagement made Medea want another triumph. As she thinks that, Psyche gets a flash, a memory from this body of her own face, laughing. She seems so... bright, like her whole being is filled with sunlight. And like the sun shining through a magnifying glass, that dazzling smile beams into Medea's body and bursts into flames of desire. It rushes through Psyche's soul in a torrent, want want want want. She can suddenly barely breathe for yearning.

Before she knows what she's doing, Medea's hands are sliding underneath her nightgown, stroking, squeezing, touching. It's nothing like what Psyche feels in her own body. Her own desire is like the wind, flowing through her, lifting her up. It's a loose and light and liberating feeling. Medea's desire wraps like tentacles, chokes like smoke, burns like fire. It's greedy and grasping and all consuming. It eats Psyche, pinning her soul to these limbs as they quake, shuddering and tensing as they fight towards the great release of the little death. She couldn't stop this if she wanted to.

And she doesn't want to. Here in Medea's body Psyche can let herself feel so much. She can recognise her own greedy and grasping desires, the way she wants Medea to look at her, only her, forever and ever and ever. She wants to drown in those dark eyes from dusk to dawn, and wants her hair to be the beam of sunlight that wakes Medea from slumber. She wants them to live openly together. She wants to demand that Medea give up everything else she loves so they can run away to another continent and spend quiet decades in each other's arms.

In the light of day, with her own tongue, she will bind these selfish whims to silence. Medea need never know. But here in the dark in the devil's lair, she lets herself be the spider, the serpent, the abyss.

Medea's body reaches climax, and Psyche comes apart with it, and when she comes back together she feels changed in a way that no touch from Eros could ever have done.

She lies back on the pillow, closing her eyes. Half asleep, she wonders what Medea felt tonight. If anyone could have unravelled the threads of yearning that Psyche's nerves are strung with, it's Medea. Maybe she spooled that yarn through Psyche's labyrinth of restraint and found treasure at the heart. Maybe not. But, Psyche thinks, one last dreamlike thought before she falls asleep, even if she didn't find passion, she would have found love. Rose sweet, star bright, a gentle balm as healing as the power of God. Medea sleeps tonight cradled in the muscles, veins and bones of one who adores every part of her.

Psyche wakes back in her own body. She feels deeply rested, though she doesn't know if that feeling comes from soul, or body, or both. As she gets up, she spies a note on her bedside table, written in her own hand. It was not there last night.

"It seems I have a big test coming up. If I am to prove the equal of myself, I must study very hard indeed. For I will not always be my own examiner."

#Your throne #Psydea #Psyche callista #Mature #After chapter 147 #Medea solon

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