#valdezinator

[notdampeterjohnson]

something i love about Leo Valdez is that you need to be constantly reminded that he’s Mexican because he could be like “WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER 🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸” at any given opportunity

#leo valdez #percy jackson #pjo hoo toa #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #trials of apollo #rick riordan #riordanverse #argo ii #valdezinator

[girlbossbigbrother]

Leo valdez would follow andrew tate until piper finds out n beats his ass n knocks some sense into him

#is this controversial #sorry valdezinators #remember how reyna had to cuss him our for continuing to call calypso mamacita against her wishes😭 #mdposts #heroes of olympus #leo valdez #piper mclean

[rachiebeee]

some Leo headcanons I have

Leo doesn't know what day his birthday is. He knows its in July, but he hasn't done anything on it since he was 8 and he used to act like it was/wasn't on certain days based on how well they went (he thinks its the 7th, but he hates the number 7 so he ignores it).

Leo has stolen and crashed a police car. He will do it again.

Leo's mother and Aunt Rosa both had dreams from Gaea that told them Leo was going to kill Esperanza, but Esperanza took it as an "he'll do it on accident bc he doesn't know how to control his powers" and Rosa took it as "It's a sign from God and this child was sent by the devil".

He's asexual biromantic, but in love with the idea of being in love.

He learns a form of script-based magic - the same thing that is etched on each stone used for the Hecate cabin. Jo is his teacher, but when he visits camp all of the Hecate cabin are happy to help him too. He views it as a code instead of magic, and only ever uses it in the things he builds because he forgets it can be useful on its own.

He's a Fall out Boy stan. Loves all types of rock too, but FOB was his gateway into it.

Every time he went to a new school if they had a music program he could join for free he would. Originally he'd just choose a new instrument every school, but on his third try he learnt drums and decided to stick with it.

HIs eyes look like yooperlite while it's glowing, but more like burning coals while he's using his powers.

On that note, Leo's body temperature can be way hotter than the normal person's. On a normal day where he's fine in everyway, he's hot but not hot enough for people to think he's feverish. When he's excited his temperature rapidly increases, as it does with stress. When he forgoes sleeping his body forgets to regulate his temperature, which leads to him either going very cold or very hot.

He can't really get fevers at all really. It's also very hard for a lot of illnesses to effect him because half the time he burns it up before he even knows its there. When he does get sick it's really bad though, because his immune system is actually pretty weak.

Related to that, he is the only known person who can currently be a theoretical host to a thermophile virus. Not that he would, but it is a thought that has crossed his mind.

He has a hobby of making little robots. He makes Piper a bronze eagle one as a present and he slowly starts to make them for his friends

Annabeth gets a cat because he thinks she has cat vibes and an owl would be basic. Percy gets an otter because Leo did not want to think about making a robot fish that works well out of water. Frank gets a chameleon as a joke, but he makes it so it can turn into a small dragon too. Hazel gets a snake, again for the vibes. Nico gets a lizard. Just like, a nondescript lizard. He makes Reyna a bronze dog to "complete the metal set", but it's based of a Molossus of Epirus instead of a hound. Jo and Emmie get matching gryphons, and Georgina's little robot is a llama. Leo makes himself a wolf in honour of Jason.

On the topic of making things, Leo also gets really into all forms of metalsmithing. Which includes making jewellery, which leads to him getting a lot of piercings. Piper does too, because they went to go get the piercings together. He loves giving people little friendship bracelets, and charms, and ornaments. He makes people themed cutlery sets.

His love language is gift giving, if it's not obvious.

He stays in contact with Apollo, but in order to not upset Zeus they frame it as 'music lessons'. As the inventor of the Valdezinator (and its best player), it's a pretty good excused. Leo does make new instruments occasionally when they feel like they're pushing the 'lesson' excuse.

They fr just gossip during them though, and then give each other a scuffed form of therapy. They go from talks about petty drama to unanswerable philosophical discussions to jokes that make no sense.

#leo valdez #heroes of olympus #hoo #pjo #pjo fandom #toa spoilers #piper mclean #annabeth chase #percy jackson #frank zhang #hazel levesque #nico di angelo #jason grace

[why-did-i-get-acne]

BEHOLD IT IS APOLLO

sorta, here's a haiku to explain

I was once a god

No longer am I a god

Because Zeus is dumb

Hi, I'm Lester Papadopoulos

(Did I spell that right, I have been in this body for so long, yet I still can't get it right)

I'm pansexual and my pronouns are he/they

My tag is #all hail apollo

Also there's:

Jason Grace, my brother from another mother (and technically father), @the-best-superman-oGod's. mpus Percy Jackson, Olympus's savior, @percy-jackson-is-a-seaweed-brain Annabeth Chase, I'm scared of her mother, @annabeth-is-a-wise-girl Thalia, I'm scared of her too, @best-dam-huntress Calypso, I may have forgotten her..., @calypso-daughter-of-atlas Hedge, isn't he a table or something?, @theonlycoachhedge Nico Di-Angelo, who's dating my son (tho he is a son of hades who also scares me) @nico-the-ghost-king, Leo, creater of the Valdezinator, @team-leoo, Piper, her dad is hot, @the-argo-2-matchmaker,Will, MY SON, @sunny-boy-solace, Reyna, her initials spell RARA, like the lady gaga song, @bow-down-to-rara, Luke, I thought he died, @lukemessedup, Hazel, Hades other kid, the one he broke the pact for, @hazel-the-diamond, Frank, the one with like 5 backgrounds, @the-amazhang-teddybear, Grover, he gets along with Meg too much, @grover-eats-cans, Rachel Dare, my oracle, @thrower-of-hairbrushes-official, Clarisse, who is that again? @everyone-is-a-punk, Tyson, I still feel bad about the tattoos, @tyson-the-cyclops, Selena, the daughter of Aphrodite, @silena-styles

[My personal blog is @wii-music-on-repeat]

#All hail apollo #percy jackson #pjo hoo toa #pjo series #pjo fandom #percy jackon and the olympians

[team-leoo]

WHAT'S UP GUYS, WELCOME TO

LEO LAND

Ahem, I mean Tumblr or whatever. Team Leo rules, I'm super cool, inventor of the Valdezinator, son of Hephaestus, and father of Festus (THE coolest bronze dragon ever)

Leo Valdez, at your service :)

(Out of character, I use the name Red with he/it/they pronouns)

list of my absolute besties (will be updated):

JASON GRACE MY RIDE OR DIE - @the-best-superman-on-olympus

PIPER 👺 (ily ❤❤❤💕😊😍 /p) - @the-argo-2-matchmaker

Percyyy, he slays 😎 - @percy-jackson-is-a-seaweed-brain

ANNABETH (scary smart..) - @annabeth-is-a-wise-girl

thalia (she scares me) - @best-dam-huntress

Coach Hedge - @theonlycoachhedge

nicolo 👹 (italian) - @nico-the-ghost-king

CAL!!! CALYPSO!! ILYSM ❤❤💓💖💖💕💞 - @calypso-daughter-of-atlas

#valdez uses his voice #leo likes talking

[wrongcaitlyn]

haven’t made much progress on the talk ur talk chapter this week but was just going through my google drive to sort out some stuff and came across my first draft of dear reader?? aka back when i thought dear reader was gonna be a one-shot.

for anyone who’s interested, this is how valgrace came to be, like, an actual thing in the dear reader series

Jason Grace ✔ @jasongrace 

Nico i am in fucking tears how could you do this to your best friend. Also you’re making fun of me for being single I can hear your laughter behind the music NOT ALL OF US FOUND THEIR SOULMATE IN HIGH SCHOOL GODDAMNIT

|

replying to @jasongrace

Jason Grace ✔ @jasongrace 

easily the best album ever

|

replying to @jasongrace

bad boy supreme leo ✔ @valdezinator

breaking my heart babe

|

replying to @valdezinator 

the graces >> @jasee25hsdfljs

WHAT IS THIS??? LEO VALDEZ X JASON GRACE????? LKDSFJLKSDJFLK

so like. idk how it happened either. also reading through this is hilarious none of it will prob be used so i might just keep posting excerpts of this 3.5k oneshot of lost potential bc so much of the actual fic has changed since then

#wrongcaitlyn #talk ur talk fic #valgrace

[lesbianbanana]

Here to push my son of Hermes!Sammy Valdez agenda lol

so anyways Sammy's described as looking exactly like Leo, and Leo's described as having a mischievous smile, pointy ears and a look in his eyes that marks him as a trouble maker, which are all very Hermes cabin traits.

Plus Hermes is the god of inventions. Sammy opened a mechanics. Hermes invented the lyre and Leo later invents the valdezinator.

And Hermes is the god of messages and I just think there's something poetical there with Sammy Hazel and Leo with Sammy being the point where both of their timelines meet and stuff so

This would make Leo a legacy which could explain why he's so powerful and has his fire

#pjo hermes #hermes cabin #sammy valdez #leo valdez

[the-literal-sun]

Have you figured out the valdezinator yet?

Not yet…but soon…

[tsarisfanfiction]

Eclipse: Chapter 16

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Adventure Characters: Apollo, Hades Now, I could make the gods' lives easy... or I could not. No prizes for guessing which way I went here. I have a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi! <<Chapter 15

APOLLO XVI

Tell a tale of woe Cross the lamenting river And then we get stuck

While he’d been preoccupied – Apollo hesitated to call it dreaming, because that implied he’d fallen asleep – his form had made considerable progress in pulling itself back together.  His healing abilities were superior to most, even down in the depths of Tartarus, it seemed, and when he pressed a hand to the knife wound in his gut where Orion had tried to disembowel him, he felt nothing but unmarked skin.

His throat, too, was intact once more, as were the other various smaller injuries he’d picked up from both their battle with the giant and the broader Tartarus experience, and part of Apollo wondered how long he’d been sat there.  Ichor still stained his armour and skin alike, a jagged slit in the abdomen of his armour showing where Orion’s hunting knife had passed through it as though it hadn’t existed, but it was a simple matter to will it away.

The action didn’t bother his essence in the slightest, adding credence to the suspicion that he had been… out… for some time, for whatever measure or worth time had in the Pit, and some self-evaluation put him at not quite a hundred percent, but recovered enough that he was confident in his abilities to handle most non-Orion levels of confrontation once more.

Cool metal, celestial bronze at its finest despite the haphazard nature of the creation, made itself known in his hand and he looked down at the Valdezinator – or rather, the remains of it.

The instrument was, for lack of a better word, ruined, and Apollo felt a not inconsiderable amount of regret at the sight.  For something he had more or less forced Leo to give up to keep up his own appearances, he had grown attached to the strange yet utterly unique instrument, and had been making great strides in mastering the art of playing it.

In fact, his performance against Orion could have argued that he had if not mastered, at least achieved a high level of proficiency in playing it – something Apollo had never fully expected himself to manage.  Not because it was outside of his realms of ability – it was a musical instrument, it was always within his abilities – but because of the requirements for playing it.

The Valdezinator fed on emotions.  It was ingenious – music and emotions were heavily intertwined, but never had Apollo before seen an instrument that required emotions to make sound in such a way as the Valdezinator.  When he considered that it was constructed with less than a thought from Leo, simply something his hands did while his mouth was busy, it seemed unbelievable – and yet, it fit so perfectly.  Something created on a whim, away from conscious thought, that required the intangible to play…  Apollo loved it, but the vulnerability it had forced from him had been something he had been unwilling to display.

It demanded honesty, not a performance, and Apollo had never thought he would be in a position where he would willingly shed his performance in front of an audience – at least, not until his trials, and Lester, and everything that had entailed.

Still, against Orion – in front of Hades – with the fear from the Helm swirling around him and Orion’s vicious face threatening him, threatening his sister and his children, Apollo had managed to harness the right emotions to stop the giant, to lasso the fear his uncle’s Helm emitted and channel it into a weapon against his bane.  He’d hoped that would have been enough, but he’d known that just the music wouldn’t have been.  More had been needed.

Apollo hoped Leo would understand.  His hands shook as he looked down at the mangled metal, before he pushed at it with his essence, picturing the nook he had placed it in for safe keeping on Delos.  Such a piece of mastery deserved far, far better than to be discarded in Tartarus for evermore.  Perhaps, if Leo forgave him its destruction, he would be willing and able to repair it.

Summoning it in the first place had been exhausting, not just because he’d lost so much ichor he’d been struggling to perform any truly godly feats at all but also because of the distance between Delos and Tartarus.  Sending it back, despite being well-rested, was just as difficult.  Having his ichor and strength restored helped, but Tartarus was automatically opposed to things leaving, and it took several long minutes before the instrument faded from his hands entirely.

He took one more moment to remember it, to mourn the instrument that had saved him at the cost of itself much like a certain ukulele, before casting his attention around the cave to find Hades.

His uncle was stood at the entrance, sword held loosely by his side.  It was the exact same position Apollo had seen him take up as he’d slumped against the wall of the cavern, and he wondered if Hades had moved at all since then.

All gods were capable of remaining still for long lengths of time – Apollo preferred not to, preferred to keep moving, keep seeing and doing and learning, but he could, if he had to – so it wasn’t entirely out of the question.  He decided against asking Hades if he had; with time so hard to track in Tartarus, he couldn’t even ask probing questions like how long was I out?

All he could do was pull himself to his feet, pass his hand over his quiver to make sure it was once again bristling with arrows – running out against Orion had not been fun, not when it had slowed him up and the damn giant had starting timing how long it took him to summon more arrows, ending with a perfectly-timed strike while Apollo was mid-summon and couldn’t do anything about it – and head for the entrance, where his uncle stood.

“Are you sufficiently recovered?” Hades asked as he approached.  Apollo caught sight of dark eyes flickering in his direction briefly before returning to look out upon the jagged plains of Tartarus.

“I am,” he said, offering him a slightly apologetic grin.  “Sorry about that.  And… thanks, for fighting him.”

That was another thing that had been playing on his mind, beyond the safety of Asclepius – Orion had not been Hades’ responsibility to fight.  He hadn’t needed to fight, Orion had given him the chance not to, but the older god had intervened regardless, once again taking on the role of melee combatant while Apollo stayed back as support, despite the fact it should, really, have been Apollo’s fight.  After the earlier encounter, barely getting away from his bane, he had simply been glad for the help.

“I do not need your gratitude,” Hades dismissed.  “I merely saw no reason to stand aside, and certainly not once he implied that I should.  Giants have no right to order me around.”

The reasoning, when he heard it, made sense; Hades’ pride had been insulted, so really, Orion had brought his wrath down upon him himself.  Still, Apollo couldn’t shake the feeling that, more importantly, Hades’ involvement had been the difference between defeat and victory.

“There is no more to be gained from sheltering here,” his uncle continued, sheathing his sword and turning to face Apollo fully for a moment.  “Come.  The prison is still far.”

Typically, he didn’t wait for a response before striding out, forcing Apollo to follow and take some extra strides to fall into step beside him.

For some time, they journeyed in silence.  Hades was not the sort for idle conversation at the best of times, and Apollo could think of no topics to address that his uncle would deem worthwhile, especially while they traversed a terrain as unforgiving as Tartarus.  The idea of singing, or even quietly humming, was also dismissed before it fully formed – again, not in a terrain as unforgiving as Tartarus.  Apollo had no desire to attract the attention of the Primordial any more than was absolutely necessary; if he was honest, he was already worried at how much attention their fight with Orion had gained, and he suspected Hades was similarly displeased at the potential notice.

Surprisingly, it was Hades who broke the silence, as they started descending back down the jagged ground.  At this point, the constant slicing and healing of their feet was simply a background familiarity; neither of them left a trail behind them, healing too fast for the ichor to drip.

“You said that neither you nor Artemis have ever defeated Orion,” he observed.  “However, I am aware that he has been defeated in the past.  If you did not defeat him, who did?”

That was not a topic Apollo particularly wanted to discuss, but he could understand his uncle’s reasons for asking.  Gods didn’t like not knowing things, and Orion hadn’t kept his mouth shut while they’d fought.

Nor had he, although Apollo barely recalled letting the confession slip.

“Orion didn’t fight against us, the first time,” he said, unable to keep the venom out of his voice as he spat his enemy’s name and not particularly caring to try, either.  “He was the first male to join Artemis’ Hunt.  They were friends.”  Or so Artemis had thought; he remembered her delight at meeting such a talented, respectful male archer.  At the time, Apollo hadn’t noticed the danger he posed, either.  “He was… sly.  Artemis never likes me spending too much time with her Hunters, so I saw little of him.  By the time I realised who he was – what he was… He’d almost destroyed her.”

He felt himself flare up, the rage and fear when he’d discovered what Orion was truly doing in the Hunt, the way he was grooming Artemis, intent on taking away her maidenhood, of everything that made her the independent goddess she wished to be, writhing around within his essence.

“She didn’t listen to me,” he admitted, and the pain of that stung, too.  In the millennia since, they had talked about it, and Artemis had realised how ensnared, how blindfolded, she’d been, but at the time…

At the time, it had been the first true division between the two of them, a rift that for several centuries, Apollo had feared would never mend.

That was the first time he’d truly realised that he’d do anything to protect Artemis.  No matter what.

He still wasn’t certain if she’d realised that.

“I cursed Orion,” he continued, skipping over the years of arguments, of fighting, of fearing he was going to lose his twin, either physically or emotionally (or even both) because that was still raw, too raw to talk about.  “I couldn’t kill him, but I could drive him mad.”  Dionysus had helped, a secret between the two of them.  Not even Artemis knew he’d been forced to enlist the help of another god – Orion had always needed two gods to oppose him, after all.  “In the end, the Earth killed him.”

In terms of storytelling, it was probably the worst thing he’d ever told.  Too staccato, to abrupt, with no pacing and absolutely no embellishment at all.  Were the topic anything else, Apollo would have felt embarrassed to have even considering voicing something like that.

But it was Orion, and Orion didn’t deserve a proper story.  Nor did Apollo care enough to give him one.  Not after everything he’d done and almost done to those he loved.

“He was the first giant to come back,” he said after a moment.  “He hunted the Hunt for centuries; more of my sister’s Hunters have fallen to him than any other cause, but he never showed himself when Artemis or I were nearby.”

“I recall the deaths,” Hades told him, his voice quiet.  “He hunted Nico and his travelling companions in the recent war.”

Apollo remembered that.  “That day was a slaughter,” he said, fury and grief welling up.  “We- She lost so many Hunters that day.”

Hades looked at him sharply.  “We?”

He’d hoped that slip of the tongue would have gone unnoticed, but the black flames boring into him told him otherwise.  It wasn’t like it was a secret, that some of Apollo’s daughters joined the Hunt the same as any other demigods, but voicing it out loud still felt dangerous.

“One of your daughters entered Elysium that day,” Hades said after a moment, clearly realising that Apollo wasn’t going to say it.

Apollo hadn’t realised his uncle knew the parentages of the dead, let alone that he could keep track of where they had all ended up – there were so, so many of them, from across the millennia.  Even Apollo, despite his perfect memory, couldn’t fathom remembering every single one.

“Phoebe served Artemis for four thousand years,” he said, because talking about his dead children hurt but they always deserved to be remembered, and as time passed and the mortals that knew them passed, all too often he became the only one who cared to remember them.  Artemis would remember Phoebe, too, as would the surviving Hunters, but that still didn’t diminish his desire to remember her.  “She joined before Orion.”

Hades said nothing else, but he had started the conversation, and Apollo was grieving Phoebe’s death, still, like he was grieving Jason and Crest and so many others who had died in the past year and he hadn’t had the chance to process yet, so he kept talking, as they traversed Tartarus, slowly descending down in gradual increments.  He told Hades about when she was born, about the fate of her mother and the fate that had almost befallen her, about intervening, because the Laws hadn’t been strict on that, back then, and taking her to Artemis, who welcomed her with open arms.

Four thousand years was a long time, and Apollo had a lot of stories to tell about his sharp-tongued, vibrant daughter with her healing hands and strategic mind.  He didn’t know if Hades was paying any attention, or if he’d tuned him out as background noise, but his uncle made no indication that he wanted him to stop talking, so he didn’t.

It felt cathartic to talk about her, to share stories even if his audience was both captive and unresponsive, like a celebration of her life rather than a mourning of her death, so when his mood suddenly swung around to grief again, the weight of her death pressing back down on him and stifling his words, forcing him to swallow them down before they turned to sobs, he faltered.  Grief was a tricky thing, but never had it changed his feelings so rapidly.

“Apollo.”

Hades spoke for the first time since he’d begun telling the stories, his voice firm and a little sharp.  It didn’t overly surprise Apollo that perhaps his uncle had finally tired of hearing him, but the hand that gripped his bicep almost made him jump.

“Focus,” the older god told him.  “Cocytus lies ahead.”

The river of lamentation.

Now that Hades had mentioned it, Apollo could hear the whispering cries, the accusations of all those he’d failed to save, of those he’d killed in cold blood and later regretted.  They were on the edge of his hearing, words indistinct but intent crystal clear.

He’d briefly come across the river in his rare forays into the Underworld, but it had never troubled him there.  Here, in the depths of Tartarus, it was clearly far more dangerous.

Apollo was self-aware enough to know that he had too much raw, unprocessed, grief to be able to push through the river, but at the same time turning back was not an option.  The prison was the other side, and no matter what, they had to reach it.

Beside him, Hades’ jaw was unusually set, a stiffness to it the older god would never normally show.  His uncle had been unaffected by the Phlegethon, but it was immediately clear that the Cocytus would be a far greater challenge for both of them.

“How do we cross?” Apollo asked, feeling tears welling up, pushing and pushing and pushing until they finally spilled over, down his face.  His voice shook, completely out of his control.

Hades tightened his grip on his arm.

“Keep talking,” he said, through grit teeth.

“About what?” Apollo nearly sobbed.  They hadn’t stopped walking, and the wailing voices were louder; intellectually, he knew it was just the river, that nothing it was saying was real, but everything was accurate, down to the exact timbre of their voices.

“Your daughter.”  It sounded like an order, and it startled Apollo so much the tears halted for a moment.

“Phoebe?” he croaked.

“Yes,” Hades told him impatiently.  “Or another one, if you’ve somehow exhausted all your stories about her.”

Normally, Apollo needed no persuading to talk about one of his children – Olympus, he’d just spent the last however long talking about Phoebe – but with the Cocytus wailing his sorrows back at him, the timing felt somehow wrong.

“I-” he started.  “Why?”

His uncle’s grip tightened again, his nails digging in almost painfully.  “To cross,” he said firmly, “we need a distraction.  So: distract.”

Distract who, Apollo didn’t ask.  The river’s sole purpose was lamentation – it could not be distracted from its entire being.  It was them, the gods, who needed distracting away from the river’s cries, before they ended up in a lot of potential trouble.

Apollo could do one better than talking.

With the Valdezinator destroyed, and returned to Delos beside, and no other instruments with him, he had no accompaniment, but while Apollo liked to blend his voice with the beauty of music, he could carry a tune perfectly fine without.  His first instinct was to sing of grief, but he still had enough presence of mind to recognise the river’s influence, and that music, no matter how raw, could not hope to outmatch the river with its own genre.

So he sang of life, of his children – not just Phoebe, but all of them, and their accomplishments.  Of everything they did with their lives, the hearts they touched, the stories they made.  He celebrated all of them, feeling the ever-present demand of grief pressing against him, trying to smother everything he remembered with joy and override it with the dark bitterness of lamentation.

It was difficult.  Not to sing, nor to tell stories of his children, but to keep it away from the inevitable grief that ended each of their times in his life.  Cocytus wasn’t interested in the good things, in the light, in the love, in the kindness and laughter.  It wanted the tragedy, the heartbreak, to drown Apollo in the tears that he couldn’t keep from falling no matter how brightly the stories shone.

He felt Hades pulling him forwards, shaking him aggressively whenever a strain of grief trickled into his voice until he chased it out and replaced it with joy instead.  Part of him registered that it felt strange, to have such prolonged contact with another god – with Hades, the most notorious of all for keeping his distance.  It helped him to keep singing, the reminder that Hades wanted him to distract them from the river’s thrall, and followed his uncle as they reached the bank of the river, and waded in.

At the touch of the water, a deep chill that had Apollo’s voice shaking, he stumbled, grief pressing down on him more incessantly, insisting that he stop and let the river pull him so far under he’d never resurface again.

Hades kept him upright.

How his uncle was managing to keep going, one foot in front of the other as they waded through the Cocytus together, assailed by the river’s determination to break them, Apollo didn’t know.

But he kept singing, because it was keeping him something that could almost be deemed functional, and it had been Hades’ idea so perhaps it was what was keeping him going, too.  The water around them stopped getting deeper, and then started receding again, and still Apollo sang.

He didn’t stop until Hades pulled them to a halt, finally releasing his arm and taking a half step back, re-establishing his personal space.  They were some way past the river; Apollo could almost hear the words within the wails, could certainly still identify the voices.  But they were past.

“Clean yourself up,” Hades instructed, not for the first time since they’d arrived in Tartarus.  Apollo suspected it would not be the last, either.  It was the largest admission of unease his uncle was consistently showing – a need to look perfect, to look untouchable, to the monsters that watched them hungrily as they passed.  Apollo understood; appearance had been a large part of his life for a very long time.  Fake it ‘til you make it, mortals were fond of saying.

Apollo considered it to be a very important motto, too.

There was no ichor to clean up this time, simply tracks of tears that had cut down through his cheeks.  It made a nice change, as Apollo willed himself back into a presentable appearance.  He was not a fan of the puffy, gold-stained eyes that crying inflicted upon his face, either.

Hades barely waited for him to clean up before resuming his walk, leaving Apollo to take a couple of larger steps in order to fall back in line with him.  Conversation – even one-sided – now felt unwelcome, and while part of Apollo wanted to continue to play and sing his song, especially without grief trying to clog up his voice, the rest of him knew that he, too, had to process what they had just been through, so he kept it to himself.

He was also nervous about the next river; according to Hades, it was Styx, and Apollo could not imagine how that encounter – if, of course, the goddess decided to reveal herself – would pan out.  Her actions on the edge of Chaos remained an enigma, and Apollo did not know her well enough to predict what she would do.

When they reached the banks of the river, however long later, the goddess was waiting for them.

Arms crossed, she stood in the middle of the flowing water, her legs seeming to dissolve and merge with the flow of foggy river.

“Oath Keeper,” she greeted, confusing Apollo for a split second, before her black, cruel eyes landed on him and her voice changed to a guttural snarl.  “Oathbreaker.”

The look Hades gave him was indecipherable, and Apollo played it safe by not responding to either of them.  The last time he had seen the goddess, she had reminded him of the important lessons he had learned and then walked away, allowing him to go free despite her ability – and motive – to unfurl his desperately reaching fingers and cast him into Chaos, much the same way he had cast Python bare moments earlier.

“Styx,” Hades said after a moment’s silence.

“The Oathbreaker does not pass,” Styx said, her eyes still pinning Apollo in place.  “You, Hades, Oath Keeper, are free to cross my waters, but I will not allow Apollo the same luxury.”

It felt like Apollo should say something.  Not a defence – his oaths had been rash, but that had not made them any less binding, and breaking them no less of an offence – but something.

“We need to cross,” Hades told her, unwavering in the face of her glare.  Apollo did not know exactly how close their relationship was, but Styx guarded the Underworld, so clearly there was some degree of a working relationship, if nothing else.  “Let us pass.”

“No.”  The water swirled around her exposed torso aggressively.  “You, Oath Keeper, may cross.  Apollo, Oathbreaker, may not.”

“Styx-” Hades started, but the goddess seemingly held no fear for the god of the Underworld as she cut straight across him.

“If you cross my waters, I will take my owed dues.”

Her dark, dark eyes bored straight through into Apollo’s essence, uncomfortable in their intensity, but nothing compared to the painful twist of his insides as the threat registered.

“And what would those be?” he asked, keeping his back straight even though there was a large part of him, god of knowledge or not, that did not want to know what Styx thought an appropriate recompense for his rash oaths.  He remembered her threatening him before, with deaths of loved ones, taking the credit for Jason and Crest even though Jason, at least, had been prophesised to die, but it had never completely felt like she had taken her price, not even on the edge of Chaos when she’d turned away instead of casting him down.

Now was a terrible time for her to take it, so of course now would be when she chose to.

Her answer came in the rapids of her water, not words.  In an instant, she burst her banks, water cascading down on Apollo.  It didn’t drive him to his knees – as a mortal, he would have never stood a chance against the onslaught, but he wasn’t mortal, not anymore, and being one of the twelve Olympians counted for a lot – but it hammered his form nonetheless.

It also showed him images.

Images that made him roar, blasting away the water and shattering the vision of Will, dragged down to Tartarus and tossed from river to river before Styx dragged him down into her depths and his body went slack, blue eyes glassy and lifeless.

“No,” he snarled, knowing that he had no right to dictate the terms of punishment, but refusing to let any of his children take the fall for him.

Styx seemed unconcerned at the way he’d scattered her waters, drawing it all back within the bank and letting the clouded rapids continue hurtling their way down the body of the Pit.

“Anything else,” Apollo continued, his hand tightening around his bow for wont of something to do, “but not my children.”

“You do not get to decide that,” Styx told him, her voice chilling.  Apollo trembled, whether with fear or rage, he didn’t want to determine.  “Oathbreaker.”

“This is a waste of time,” Hades interjected, catching Apollo’s attention as he began to walk away from the river.  “Come, Apollo.  There is another way.”

Apollo hesitated, the clear threat to his children making his instincts scream that he had to do something to get them off of Styx’s list of potential retributions.  The goddess smiled at him – not a nice smile, but a harsh, cold smile.

“Go,” she told him.  “Go, and suffer in the depths of Tartarus.  Or…”  Her teeth flashed, sharp, like a predator, and uncanny in her otherwise human face, “cross me.”

It was a test, but it was an easy one that Apollo didn’t even have to think about.

If he wasn’t willing to sacrifice everything to save his children, he would never have returned to Tartarus in the first place.  Whatever Tartarus – and Styx, it seemed – was willing to throw at him, Apollo would endure.  Anything but his children.

He turned his back on the goddess, and followed Hades as his uncle led them away from the river.

Chapter 17>>

#trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #pjo apollo #pjo hades #pjo styx #tsari writes fanfiction #eclipse

[the-god-of-sun]

What if I made a Valdezinator 2.0?

Valdezinator two-point-o! Now with seventy-five ways to absolutely 'Dez someone right in the feels with music!

Little sister annoying you? Play any love song with the Valdezinator 2.0! She'll leave you alone for a day at least

Feral garbage child claim you as their servant? Simply play any classical music! It's a scientific fact that all feral garbage children hate Motzart, Veridi, and Wolfgang!

And so much more!

… hm.

[edenslice]

since meg rejected her scimitars during TON, it's safe to assume her next weapon should be a pair of gardening gloves that double as gauntlets when activated.

imagine. she's turning 13 soon, apollo's scrambling to make the best present ever, except meg's fucking picky as shit these days like a growing kid should be

apollo's asking for suggestions desperately and the best idea came from an offhand comment from leo playing fucking league of legends on the waystation's windows vista

Leo: you've seen this new league game? there's a character with HUGE gauntlets for weapons. give her gauntlets bro! like MASSIVE ones! i could forge a pair for her man, but you'd owe me a favor—not that i'm really offering to do it, but yeah jo and i could really make it work if you'd like. y'know cal told me last night that she'd need a pair of enchanted gauntlets to hit me on the noggin so I'd finally shut up once and for all, but—

Apollo: GODS OF OLYMPUS! leo, my friend, you're a genius. as i would've expected from the valdezinator's creator!

Leo: thanks man, it's what i do. also, aren't you the god of prophecy? you really should've seen this coming.

#yes i somehow managed to incorporate LOL in the rrverse #trials of apollo #the trials of apollo #lester papadopoulos #meg mccaffrey #leo valdez #pjo apollo #pjo hoo toa #pjato/hoo #heroes of olympus #rrverse #toa headcannons #apollogists #aking gawa

[fuzzystudios]

my (very informal) essay on why “lester” is an amazing representation of “apollo”

(*note: I copy pasted this from discord but it is indeed still mine) apollo, despite being a god, is imperfect like the rest of the gods. lester is imperfect (shown by the acne and lack of 8 pack abs that we are forced to agree with every few paragraphs or so). lester acts more like apollo than apollo does pre-toa which i find really ironic lol and lester is young--by like, those adult standards i guess?? because 16-17 is pretty young in life. apollo never really sounded 4612 years old to me. can you imagine how cryptic and all-wise this guy would sound? yeah no. despite how apollo in tho (and probably the rest of the gods) would call themselves perfect and act all egoistical and whatnot, they are not actually perfect. they're gods and that's kind of their role, and they don't like being reminded of their resemblance to humans, being imperfect. they actually do act quite a lot like humans, haha suck it guys don't kill me pls this is not an insult lester is the representation of imperfect. zeus gave this form to him because it probably humiliated him and made his job harder, but it seems that this imperfect form lacking any 8-pack abs and is no short on acne (i feel you bro) called "lester papadopoulos" is a good representation of apollo. he gets tired, he's imperfect, like how "apollo" really is, as well as the other gods. they make mistakes. they have things even they can't control. in my opinion, apollo is young. like not physically (wait is he even physical in any sense?? he's built of human minds), but he seems to be in spirit and in mind. i really dunno how to put this but he just gives off the youngster vibes, yk? he's excited with new things like the valdezinator, wants the answers to his questions on the world. that sort of thing. has energy (whether it's coffee or not ig), determination. one ironically funny thing is that "lester" is more "apollo" than "apollo" is which is hilarious like lester is more apollo than apollo is himself?? HAHA that's so funny! that was not a genuine laughing tone lester (mostly after the beginning of tho) represents his character development, or rather, self-rediscovery. (WOOHOO) he's been more himself than he has been for millennia- he hasn't been really himself for so long. he's tried, at least. but he's never really changed deep down, but on his actions. and now after that unceremonious fall from cloud nine, he found himself. (most of it, anyway--still strong as ever with that denial, buddy.) in all, "lester" is a great representation of who apollo is, because the form of lester he was put in is considered a friend of the mortals he has spent time with and loved. CHB sees lester as a fellow friend. apollo loves making friends with nearly everyone. "lester"'s imperfect like how apollo (and basically all the the gods) are in the rrverse. and that's probably why he chose the shape of the "meatsack" he was shoved into. it's very home. it's very him.

#I have just SPEWED content #I am Chaos and welcome to my world #apollogists #trials of apollo #apollo #lester papadopoulos #shower thoughts? #more like instrument practice thoughts #actually nvm I'm just weird #essay #analysis thing #random thoughts #essay thing

[styx-x]

valdezinator

#leoooo #leo vladez #he gave me my sense humour #happy fun time #my art #pjo #pjo hoo toa #heroes of olympus #rick riordan #riordanverse #leo valdez fanart #nico di angelo #percy jackson #pjo fanart #hoo fanart #greek mythology #character sketch #character study #my favourite childhood book #percy jackson fanart #uncle rick

[citrusreadstoa]

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 8 (SPOILERS)

"since all he had to do was heat his hands a little." Careful, Leo! Some of these dishes can't withstand certain high temperatures. They'll crack!

"those secret scales on the Valdezinator?" "What secret scales?" I swear, that little music box is the only thing keeping Leo alive.

"Wouldn't the two springs, like, cancel each other out?" Exactly my thoughts. "Assuming the experience didn't kill you" O-oh. Istg every little thing you do in Greek mythology will kill you. Say someone's name? ZAP! Annoy a god? Constellation! Drink water from two different springs? Brain explodes! Step a little too far to the left and you'll probably melt or smthn idk.

"descend into the cave and experience... untold horrors." Delightful! I can't wait!!11! "That is one messed-up Oracle." No kidding. Everything in the Oracle is a 50/50 chance of dying or going insane. He says with any luck your mind will go back to normal. So altogether, that's a 50% chance of dying, a 37.5% chance of going insane permanently, and a 12.5% chance of coming out both alive and sane. Maybe we could just skip this one and let the emperors have it. We've got four other Oracles that usually don't drive people insane or kill them.

"The petitioner would be stuck with those horrors from the cave--forever." So the throne releases the horrors from your mind? Would you still remember it but be less burdened by it or would you forget it entirely? Also, it's really cool how they call the person "the petitioner."

"Georgina... that poor child. What do you think happened to her?" I don't know, what do you think, Calypso? Seems pretty self-explanatory.

"[The emperor] was not a nice person." I think we already could guess that, Apollo. "if I had the right emperor, this quest could be personally awkward." Oh, awkward is what you're worried about?

"Leo, you can't reduce everything to a program." Isn't that exactly the same thing Josephine is doing with the tracking device? They're both trying to use machines to find a person. Same-same. It's not reducing it to a program, it's repurposing an conveniently already-existing device. These two sound like they've had this argument before...

"Why does this rug look like a tightly woven net?" HAHAHAHA "This is a net." Yes.

"ascending in glory to sit at the right hand of my father." After everything he's done and put you through, you still want to sit beside him?

"You're probably thinking: It was Artemis." Well now that you say it, I'm not thinking that anymore.

"Britomartis, the goddess of nets." They have a goddess specifically for nets? Looked it up. She has mountains and hunting, too, which is nice. She also goes by the name Diktynna or Dictynna or Dicte. So now we have a link to the "House of Nets!" Are they referring to the Waystation and it's gonna turn out that it was created by Britomartis or something and that's why the Hunters use it a lot?

#reading trials of apollo #reading the dark prophecy #reading toa #reading tdp #toa spoilers #trials of apollo spoilers #trials of apollo #the dark prophecy #percy jackson and the olympians #apollo pjo #apollo #lester papadopoulos #leo valdez #calypso pjo #calypso #triumvirate holdings #artemis pjo #artemis #britomartis pjo #britomartis #pjo #toa #pjo hoo toa #rrverse #riordanverse

[papadoupoulous-lester]

this verryyyy old drawing of leo valdezinator

#leo valdez #pjo #rrverse #riordianverse #hoo #pjo hoo toa #heroes of olympus

[team-leoo]

Can you create a new instrument to keep Apollo entertained please?

-Rachel (@thrower-of-hairbrushes-official )

Of COURSE I can! 😁

Valdezinator 2.0 will be coming out soon, pookies, I promise

#valdez uses his voice #pjo hoo toa