#˙ ˖ ⊰ ✧ ⊱ 彡 meta ･ mercy has come to me exactly in this way¸ as a premonition.

[sanktere]

Olympian Aesthetic Headcanons

Bold where applicable, italicize where situationally relevant

APHRODITE. (2.5) laughter-loving, sweet smiles, dressed in silk and satin, flower in their hair, thrives on attention, sees the world as a runway, unapologetically sexual, the sea washing their ankles, in love with love, stirrer of passion, cunning concealed by painted lips, secret daggers, doves, revolution in their kiss, delighting in the waves, flirtatious winks, strolling along the beach, staring wistfully from a balcony, this is how to be a heartbreaker, your girlfriend thinks they’re attractive, wants to be adored, turned on by danger.

APOLLO. (4) glitz and glamour, art galleries, turning the volume up, being made of gold, neatly-organized music sheets, notebooks filled with poetry, bathing in the sunlight, the powerful urge to create, collecting vinyl records, beautiful cover of wonderwall, playing multiple instruments, tasting like sunshine, healing touch, speaking in prophecies, smile mingled wrath, shunning lies, sporting shades, hanging out at music festivals with their friends, sleeping naked, arrow to the heart, paint brushes.

ARES. (4.5) armed for battle, wants to raise a dog with their significant other, soft spot for children, gives piggyback rides, scarred body, blood on their hands and face, willing to fight the world for the ones they love, fights against injustice, warm hugs, well-worn combat boots, boxing gloves, bandages wrapped around bruised knuckles, fist raised in protest, ignites revolutions, fear is a prison, more sensitive than what their tough shell will make you think, exhausted, damaged goods, force to be reckoned with, red roses, curses under their breath.

ARTEMIS. (2.5) keen sense of a hunter, freckles like constellations on their skin, piercing eyes, disheveled braid, moonlight peeking through the shadows, the calm of the forest at night, lying on the grass and staring at the stars, mother doe and her fawn, protecting their kin, the moon shimmering on a still lake, quiver full of arrows resting against the bark of a tree, running with wolves, bonding while circled around a campfire, not being much of a people person, arrow hitting a target, popping egos, patience on 3%, touches heaven and returns howling.

ATHENA. (3) discerning gaze, unreadable face, the patience of a lifelong teacher, quiet museums, owl perched on their finger, armor that intimidates, eye for architecture, studied the blade while everyone else was busy getting laid, big fan of logic, loves brain teasers, go-getter, balls of wool displayed on shelves, ancient buildings, sweaters in neutrals and cool colors, hair done up, can kill you with their brain, heads to the library often to research, sharpened pencils, abs that can cut steel, stoic statues, pottery classes.

DEMETER. (4.5) soil-covered hands, smile that can bloom flowers, skin loved by the sun, being the mom-friend, flowers kept in the pockets of overalls, takes pride in their beautiful garden, speaks to their plants (elementals), leaves rustling in the wind, stalks of wheat, picking fruit, greenhouses, heart as strong as a mountain, values simplicity, daisies dotted across a collarbone, curls crowned with flowers, folded pile of sweaters in warm hues, pulling out fresh-baked bread out of the oven and the smell wafting through the air.

DIONYSUS. (0) drunk shitposter, on their sixth glass of wine before you’ve even finished your second, seductive smirks, untamed curls, rich fabrics on dark skin, sleek-furred panthers, theater masks, stage productions, receiving a standing ovation, rose caught between their teeth, being the baby of the bunch, wild parties that last from sundown to sunup, creeping vines, inspiring loyalty, grand opera houses, masquerade balls, rolls of film, shattered chandeliers with broken glass scattered across the floor, pouring champagne into flutes, lives for the applause.

HEPHAESTUS. (0.5) the calloused hands of someone who knows labor, sweaty brow, flame burning in their eyes, inventive mind, broad shoulders, steampunk goggles, nuts and bolts stored away in little boxes, ashes, striking a match, blueprints for future projects, fixing up a busted up car and giving it cool upgrades, wrestles with bitterness, work boots have seen better years, wrinkled plaid shirts, iron melted in blazing fire, huge jackets, crafting masterpieces, greased-stained overalls, fascination with robotics, pain is fuel, stack of weaponry.

HERA. (1) resting bitch face, dressed to the nines, cows grazing on a pasture, cool rain, loving and hating fiercely, hand clutching a string of pearls, large chandelier with glittering crystals, plays the sims for the sole purpose of killing off their sims, romance to realism, pictures of the sky while flying on a plane, downs glasses of wine as they relax with a scented bubble bath, like their selfie or you’re grounded, knows 57 convenient ways to murder a man, dark eyes that penetrate your soul, marble and gold.

HERMES. (0) devil-may-care smile, ink-stained hands, always up-to-date on the latest technology, does it for the vine, shitposter, puts googly eyes on everything, meme hoarder, long drives on the highway, ma and pop diners, spontaneous road trips, folded maps, fingers dancing across the keyboard of a laptop, shooting hoops on the basketball court, chatting up strangers as you all journey to your own destinations, goes jogging in the morning, mixes redbull with coffee, menace on april fool’s, hoodies and sneakers.

POSEIDON. (5.5) storm with skin, colorful coral reefs, waves crashing against the shore, the sea casting its spell, stroking the soft fur of a cat, their heart pounding as their horse’s gentle trot speeds into a gallop, tousled locks, clothes smeared with paint, owns several sketchbooks yet always yearns for more, leather jackets, fondness for diy projects, handwriting that flows across the page, nimble fingers playing the strings of a violin, velvety singing voice that haunts your dreams, mood as ever-changing as the sea, the roar of a motorcycle, compass with a spinning arrow.

ZEUS. (2) thunder in their heart, running on coffee, flash of lightning, natural charisma, eloquence, badass in a nice suit, aficionado of history, force of nature, pretends they don’t have feelings but they do, nightmare-filled nights, proud arm around their lover’s waist, high-rise buildings, planes soaring through a cloudless sky, technician on the piano, maintains order, strong handshake, juggling multiple events on their busy schedule with ease, most likely to be voted class president out of their peers, expensive watch.

[sanktere]

AESTHETIC: NATURAL LANDSCAPES

bold whichever aesthetically-pleasing imagery fits your muse to a T. italicize the ones that are only somewhat their vibe. repost, do not reblog!

I.  fluffy, white nimbus clouds.  dark, grey cumulonimbus clouds. rain clouds.  a hurricane.  light spring breeze. hazy yellow skies.  deep blue ponds of freshwater. blankets of sparkling snow. tornado winds.  monsoon flooding.  rich, orange sunsets.  soft, purple clouds at dusk. heavy hail.  the rumbling of thunder.  icy sleet.  gentle snowfall.  moss-dusted tree bark. pink sunset clouds.

II.  grey winter skies.  navy blue skies in the daytime.  cool mist in the morning.  leaf-bare trees.  giant ocean waves. the full moon. a cracked, dry desert. rolling hills of prairie grass. sweeping waves of briny seawater.  rocky, steep ravines.  rippling canyon walls.  spindly, cave stalactites. creeping, green ivy.  lush canopies of leafy trees.  dense, white fog.  a peaceful creek of clear water.  flowering cacti. catching light in the morning sun.  a bubbling, hot pool of volcanic sulfur. sharp, grey mountainsides.  fossils nestled in chunks of rock.  a white sand beach.  deep imprints of animal tracks in the dirt.

III.  soft, squishy moss. uniform rows of birch trees in winter.  delicate mushrooms popping up in spring from beneath the decay on the forest floor.  tumbleweeds jerking in the faintest wind across the desert landscape.  light rain.  summer wildfires.  a mix of hot and cool air before a storm. silent lightning in the static of summer heat.  a windy blizzard.  thick flakes of snow tumbling down from the sky. a tree standing alone in a barren, yellow field.  a desert of loose sand and tall, orange dunes.  a pure blue sky.  a river of molten rock.  a grove of flowering trees. twisting, mangled roots sticking up from the muddy ground.

IV.  bitter, cold winds.  tumultuous skies of stormy clouds.  branches of lightning, ripping across the sky. a foggy swamp.  the tree-bare foothills of a mountain range.  sandy brown cliff sides.  rocky coastlines.  the violent shaking of an earthquake. the lights of the auroras borealis and australis.  a black sand beach.  a lone tropical island in the reef of shallow, aqua waters.  underwater volcanic vents.  a herd of migrating mammals. tree branches growing heavy with ripe fruit.  light streaming down through the clouds. a field of lush grain waving peacefully in the summer breeze.  the sound of insects and frogs teeming in the night. natural disaster.

tagged by. i’m a thief in the night tagging. you and you and you and y

[sanktere]

mun   vs   muse     [  personality  indicators  ]

MBTI.  

mun :   INFJ

muse :   ENFJ  ( caeldori )  /  ISTP  ( ephraim )  /  INFP  ( lucius )

ENNEAGRAM.

mun:  4w5 : the free spirit

muse:  3w4 : the expert  ( caeldori )  /  8w9 : the diplomat  ( ephraim )  /              2w3 : the companion  ( lucius )

HOGWARTS  HOUSE.

mun:   ravenclaw

muse:    gryffindor  ( caeldori & ephraim )  /  hufflepuff  ( lucius )

ZODIAC.  

mun:  taurus

muse:  cancer  ( caeldori )  /  libra  ( ephraim )  /  pisces ( lucius )

TEMPERAMENTS.

mun:    melancholic

muse:   choleric  ( caeldori & ephraim )  /  phlegmatic  ( lucius )

tagged by : nah tagging : anyone o/

[sanktere]

[ 🗾 ] how self-sufficient is your muse? are they more independent, or do they need others around them?

✧   //    symbol meme.  /  @divinetyrfing

despite what his softspoken and hesitant demeanor, and the fact that he’s so reluctant to let raven go off on his own, might suggest, lucius is surprisingly independent where his own needs are concerned. rather than insisting on accompanying raven all the time because of a dependency on the other man, it’s really just that he takes his position as raven’s vassal quite seriously and assumes a degree of responsibility for anything that might happen to him.

by himself though, lucius is comfortable handling himself, and doesn’t tend to rely on or need others for physical, emotional, etc. support. he’s adept at handling his own affairs and navigating the world on his own if need be. does he like companionship? absolutely. he’d likely prefer it if given the choice because burdens of any kind are always easier when shared. but he doesn’t need it.

prior to age 13-14 when he entered into the service of house cornwell, he was on his own in many ways post the age of 3, which is the primary reason for his self-sufficiency. he was, in name, under the care of the orphanage, but it’s clear that the orphanage really didn’t do much for the children that lived there in the way of wellbeing. with the clear suggestion in canon that lucius’ life there was populated by neglect, misery, and loneliness ( he describes the “poverty and despair” as being enough to “eat at one’s very soul” ), he was largely on his own where it came to supporting himself, in many senses of the word.

( i say largely because he did have one very good adult role model from outside of the orphanage that played the biggest role in smolcius’ development as a little person despite the conditions of his upbringing, but that’s 100% my own hc and very off-topic. so, another time. )

he also set off on his own from the orphanage at a young age ( by my math-ing and hc, most likely around 12-13 ) to become a traveling monk, which again is both demonstrative of and helped to further cultivate his self-sufficiency before he then was taken in by house cornwell.

[sanktere]

nightshade!!! :)

✧   //    flower and tree prompts.  /  @sheerempathy

——  nightshade : what is a painful truth your character has had to face?

through his life, there’s been quite a few, but one of the most recent and likely one of the most difficult for lucius to come to terms with was the truth that there was so little he could do to help raven after the fall of house cornwell.

mun note: i’ve done my best here to speak only from my lucius interpretation’s point of view and avoid coming down hard on assumptions, but @basiliphis please weigh in if you feel like i’ve misrepresented anything here!

for one who wants so much to do what he can to make the world a little bit of a better place, and who ( in my hc ) was brought into service under house cornwell not because of his strength of character or combat ability but because he wanted to be a safe harbor for others, it was incredibly difficult to realize that he could only do so much for the one person he was supposed to provide that for above all others.

in the 2 years after the fall of house cornwell, raven obviously gets deep into a spiral of pain and aggression and hatred, and very little to none of lucius’ attempts to soothe and reason get through to him if what little the game script gives us is any indication. their support conversations seem to suggest that raven probably interpreted a lot of these attempts as lucius misunderstanding or pitying him, and i’d be willing to bet that the resulting altercations probably widened a rift between them. during lyn’s story when we first meet lucius, he’s also traveling by himself for reasons unknown, and while there’s no evidence of this in canon, it’s possible this temporary separation could be the result of a fallout from this tension.

in any case, while lucius of course always comes back to and sticks by raven anyway no matter how the other treats him, one can imagine that he’s probably tried everything he can think of to attempt to help him, to little avail. one can also imagine that raven’s attitude about how nothing matters more to him than this revenge and how he’s willing to die for it if that’s what it takes is also really hard for him to stomach. stuff like raven’s final battle quote ( “if i die here... so be it.” ) are likely really difficult for lucius to hear, whether or not raven means them to sound as nihilistic as lucius interprets them. 

and sometimes we get glimpses of how all this affects him:

Caelin Soldier: “Your master… He’s betrayed us. Lucius, I must ask. What will you do?”

Lucius: “I… I want to stop Lord Raven. However… In his current state, I…doubt he will lend me his ear. And so…I will…wait. I will wait for Lord Raven here. I’m sorry… I cannot fight. …Please understand.”

of course lucius is a passive person by nature, but i think this moment speaks to a little more than just that. he’s just seen raven not only bully and threaten in pursuit of his revenge, but throw aside all his ethics, morals, and loyalties for a chance to kill one man, and on top of that, also won’t let lucius do his job as his vassal and come with him while he does it. more than just his usual unwillingness to make waves, this moment seems to suggest for lucius a deeply conflicted hopelessness. he’s at his wits’ end after once again seeing raven so deep in the grips of the worst side of himself and being unable to do anything about it. so he’ll just wait like he’s been told, and pray that he at least comes back. he also has a tendency throughout his dialogue of getting a lot more profilic with ellipses, particularly ellipses in the middle of his sentences, when he’s really struggling or upset, as opposed to his default brand of soft-spoken, so that’s also influenced my interpretation here.

i think by the time of their C support, lucius has already realized that there’s very little he can do besides be a broken record and speak his same opinions over and over again, and that the change and healing that raven needs can really only come from himself. that the most he can do for him is to stay by his side no matter what as long as raven will have him there and just keep praying. this truth is an immeasurably tough pill for him to swallow.

[sanktere]

Queen Anne’s Lace: If your character could pretend one thing, what would it be? (( eyes emoji ))

✧   //    flower and tree prompts.  /  @basiliphis & @serenegaldr​

would you believe me if i said i’ve been turning this question over in my head for (when did i reblog this meme) five days LMAO i went through so much and so many different ideas and stared my muse in the face for so long like trying to figure out an answer that wasn’t just the cop-out of “nothing, really”. like if he could pretend anything, would it be that house cornwell had never fallen? that raven hadn’t suffered? that he could’ve been the one to have suffered instead of him? that his parents hadn’t died? that his childhood at the orphanage had been different?

and none of these were right. so. but, in the end, i think i came to an answer. and i think if lucius really could pretend one thing,

it would be that he was strong.

i think he blames his weakness a lot. for the fact that he’s consistently plagued by this illness. it’s a sickness of the soul, he says, because his experiences at the orphanage had — let me use language here lucius never would — fucked him up so bad. ( it’s goddamn ptsd lucius!!!! i yell back at the serenesforest script. not that he knows what that is. anyway. ) but he sees it as a reflection of the weakness of his heart that, if he were stronger, more resilient, wouldn’t afflict him. or at least quite so badly.

he knows he’s the kind of person who tends to be passive, who tends to let people jerk him around, who isn’t contentious or outspoken or opinionated. ( he is opinionated; he just doesn’t like to voice it. unless you’re raven. ) usually he’s fine with how he is. sometimes he does wish he was a little different. sometimes he wonders if things would have gone differently if he was different.

this wondering is also a kind of weakness, to him. clergy of the elimine church are supposed to strive to be kind of superhuman, in a way — at least, in the branch of the elimine faith that i hc he ascribes to. ( different schools of elimine religion, a deep dive for another time. ) they’re all supposed to seek to emulate the saint as much as possible, in her patience and strength and love and wisdom, and seek to rise above the struggles and doubts of the human heart. how are they supposed to guide and help and heal others, otherwise?

maybe if he’d also been physically stronger, house caelin wouldn’t have fallen either. actually, the more i write this, the more i realize a lot of this ties back into lucius’ more deep-seated traumas of fearing — i’m not sure what to call it; some mixture of failure and ‘ not being good enough ’ and ‘ doing it wrong ’ — but more than fearing that, fearing the rebuke of it.

honestly though, for as much as i’ve rambled here, for the most part, these thoughts of wishing he was better than he is don’t plague lucius all that often. generally, he doesn’t want for much; he doesn’t want to erase the past or wish it hadn’t happened. but, on those days when he’s feeling really unwell and unsure and it’s like the whole world is breathing down his neck, he does wish he could overcome.

[sanktere]

quince: one temptation your character has had.

 ✧   //    flower and tree prompts.  /  @mjolnrr

          the lone figure of the man looks as though he might almost be blown into the sea. one hand shielding his eyes from the triumphant glare of the sun, fierce cliffside gusts making a streaming banner of his golden hair. the rich, pungent salt of ocean baywater spirals skyward on the updraft, carrying with it the crashing spray of churning waters on the sheer rocks below.

          he glances down. it’s certainly a long drop to those frothing, aegean-white rapids whipped into frenzy by the wind — almost enough to make his head spin, and he takes an instinctive step further back from the edge.

          lord raymond, possibly the others, will come looking for him soon. indecision shakes in his heart, feeble thing it has always been.

          sacrilege would follow his name if he were to listen to this rash, terrible notion that had taken hold of him. the twin ivories bound in sacred lettering clutched beneath his arm feel as though they still burn — beyond their bindings, through his robes, unto flesh — even though the battle had ended,                                                                         truly, truly ended,

          and the safety and domain of man settled again over all elibe.

          cursory though his exposure had been, he will never be as he was before the Light had come at his asking. hands and forearms still braise and tingle, not as if grazed by fire, but the overwhelming colorless purity that light magic created: caustic and invisible, and his skin had thinned, seemed glassier for it. not even a handful of hours with such relics, to this — and they had hardly been at a fraction of their full power! the saint had truly been a savior beyond human limitations.

          they had hardly been at their full power. aureola and luce. and of what strange truth he dared to imagine the former whispered to him voicelessly through its aurigraphy.

          it had been held in the saint’s hands. dispelled evil. he knew the tales like a child their favorite lullaby, the songs of praise in his sleep. ‘ when i behold the Glorious Word, bestowed by Her Most Divine to guide...  ♫ ’ there were no words to render the honor of carrying it, much less having pulled from its holy pages.

          yet, what was it — itself?

          ... the gale-tossed waters lash upon the cliff. ❝ lucius! ❞ ... they had found him. he had hesitated too long.

          no. he knows that’s not true. he would never have done it. turning, he smiles to his allies and companions alongside whom he had toiled and fought, offers some apology for straying off. yes, there was a new elibe to return to across the bay. footsteps retreat from the windswept precipice; two fathomless weights beneath his arm.

          he would never have done it. but, for a moment...